Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jude 1:12

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds [they are] without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

12. These are spots in your feasts of charity ] Here also, as in 2Pe 2:13, the MSS. vary between “deceits” ( ) and “feasts of charity, or love ” ( ), but the evidence preponderates for the latter reading. Some MSS., including the Sinaitic, insert the words “these are murmurers ,” which now stand in Jud 1:16, at the beginning of this verse. The word rendered “spots” ( ) is not the same as that in 2Pe 2:13 ( ), and in other Greek writers has the sense of “reefs” or “rocks below the sea.” It is possible that St Jude may have looked on the two words as identical in meaning, but it is obvious, on the other hand, that the word “rocks,” though it suggests a different image, gives a perfectly adequate sense to the whole passage. The false impure teachers who presented themselves undetected in the Christian love-feasts were as sunken rocks, and, if men were not on their guard, they might easily, by contact with them, “make shipwreck” of their faith (1Ti 1:19). On these love-feasts and their relation to the life of the Apostolic Church see notes on 2Pe 2:13.

when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear ] Better, feasting with you without fear, pasturing themselves. The adverb is more naturally joined in the Greek with the participle that precedes it, and the English “feeding,” suggesting, as it does, in this context simply the act of eating, fails to give the force of the Greek word for “feed,” which, as being that used in Act 20:28, 1Pe 5:2, expresses the idea of the pastoral office. What St Jude means is that these teachers of impurity, instead of submitting themselves to the true “pastors” of the Church, came in, like the false shepherds of Eze 34:1-2; Eze 34:8; Eze 34:10, to “feed themselves,” i.e. to indulge their own lusts in defiance of authority.

clouds they are without water ] The “clouds” take the place of the “wells” of 2Pe 2:17. The difference of imagery makes it probable that there may have been a difference of a like kind in the previous verse, and so far confirms the interpretation as to the “rocks” in the first clause of the verse. A like comparison is found in Pro 25:14 (“Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain”). Men look in the hot climate of the East to the cloud as giving promise of the rain from heaven. It is a bitter disappointment when it passes away leaving the earth hard and unrefreshed as before. So men would look in vain to these false teachers, shifting alike in their movements and their teaching, borne to and fro by “every wind of doctrine” (comp. Eph 4:14), for any spiritual refreshment.

trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit ] Literally, autumn-withering trees. This may mean either simply “autumnal trees,” as “in the sere and yellow leaf” that is the forerunner of decay, or “trees that wither just at the very season when men look for fruit,” and which are therefore fit symbols of the false teachers who are known “by their fruits.” The use of a cognate word in Pindar ( Pyth. v. 161) suggests, however, that the part of the compound word that corresponds to “autumn” may, like our “harvest,” be taken as a collective expression for the fruits of that season, and so the term, as used by St Jude, would mean “trees that wither and blight their fruit instead of bringing it to maturity.” The addition of “without fruit” is accordingly not a mere rhetorical iteration, but states the fact that the withering process was complete. The parable implied in the description was familiar to the disciples from the teaching both of John the Baptist and our Lord (Mat 3:10; Mat 7:16-20; Luk 13:6-9, and the Miracle of the Barren Fig-tree, Mat 21:19).

twice dead ] Better, that have died twice, stress being laid on the repetition of the act of dying. It is not easy to fix the precise meaning of the phrase, either as it affects the outward imagery or the interpretation of the parable which it involves. Probably the tree is thought to die once when it ceases to bear fruit, and a second time when the sap ceases to circulate and there is no possibility of revival. So with the false teachers, there was first the blighting of the early promise of their knowledge of the truth, and then the entire loss of all spiritual life. The end of such trees was that they were “rooted up” and cast into the fire (Mat 3:10). In the interpretation of the parable, this may refer to the sentence of excommunication by which such offenders were excluded from fellowship with the Christian society, or to the judgment of God as confirming, or, it may be, anticipating that sentence.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

These are spots – See the notes at 2Pe 2:13. The word used by Peter, however, is not exactly the same as that used here. Peter uses the word, spiloi; Jude, spilades. The word used by Jude means, properly, a rock by or in the sea; a cliff, etc. It may either be a rock by the sea, against which vessels may be wrecked, or a hidden rock in the sea, on which they may be stranded at an unexpected moment. See Hesyehius and Pollux, as quoted by Wetstein, in loc. The idea here seems to be, not that they were spots and blemishes in their sacred feasts, but that they were like hidden rocks to the mariner. As those rocks were the cause of shipwreck, so these false teachers caused others to make shipwreck of their faith. They were as dangerous in the church as hidden rocks are in the ocean.

In your feasts of charity – Your feasts of love. The reference is probably to the Lords Supper, called a feast or festival of love, because:

(1)It revealed the love of Christ to the world;

(2)It was the means of strengthening the mutual love of the disciples: a festival which love originated, and where love reigned.

It has been supposed by many, that the reference here is to festivals which were subsequently called Agapae, and which are now known as love-feasts – meaning a festival immediately preceding the celebration of the Lords Supper. But there are strong objections to the supposition that there is reference here to such a festival.

(1) There is no evidence, unless it be found in this passage, that such celebrations had the sanction of the apostles. They are nowhere else mentioned in the New Testament, or alluded to, unless it is in 1Co. 11:17-34, an instance which is mentioned only to reprove it, and to show that such appendages to the Lords Supper were wholly unauthorized by the original institution, and were liable to gross abuse.

(2) The supposition that they existed, and that they are referred to here, is not necessary in order to a proper explanation of this passage. All that it fairly means will be met by the supposition that the reference is to the Lords Supper. that was in every sense a festival of love or charity. The words will appropriately apply to that, and there is no necessity of supposing anything else in order to meet their full signification.

(3) There can be no doubt that such a custom early existed in the Christian church, and extensively prevailed; but it can readily be accounted for without supposing that it had the sanction of the apostles, or that it existed in their time.

1. Festivals prevailed among the Jews, and it would not be unnatural to introduce them into the Christian church.
1. The custom prevailed among the heathen of having a feast upon a sacrifice, or in connection with a sacrifice; and as the Lords Supper commemorated the great sacrifice for sin, it was not unnatural, in imitation of the heathen, to append a feast or festival to that ordinance, either before or after its celebration.
2. This very passage in Jude, with perhaps some others in the New Testament (compare 1Co 11:25; Act 2:46; Act 6:2), might be so construed as to seem to lend countenance to the custom. For these reasons it seems clear to me that the passage before us does not refer to love-feasts; and, therefore, that they are not authorized in the New Testament. See, however, Colemans Antiquities of the Christian church, chapter xvi., Section 13.

When they feast with you – Showing that they were professors of religion. Notes at 2Pe 2:13.

Feeding themselves without fear – That is, without any proper reverence or respect for the ordinance; attending on the Lords Supper as if it were an ordinary feast, and making it an occasion of riot and gluttony. See 1Co 11:20-22.

Clouds they are … – Notes, 2Pe 2:17. Compare Eph 4:14.

Trees whose fruit withereth – The idea here is substantially the same as that expressed by Peter, when he says that they were wells without water; and by him and Jude, when they say that they are like clouds driven about by the winds, that shed down no refreshing rain upon the earth. Such wells and clouds only disappoint expectations. So a tree that should promise fruit, but whose fruit should always wither, would be useless. The word rendered withereth phthinoporina occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. It means, properly, autumnal; and the expression here denotes trees of autumn, that is, trees stripped of leaves and verdure; trees on which there is no fruit. – Robinsons Lex. The sense, in the use of this word, therefore, is not exactly that which is expressed in our translation, that the fruit has withered, but rather that they are like the trees of autumn, which are stripped and bare. So the Vulgate, arbores autumnales. The idea of their being without fruit is expressed in the next word. The image which seems to have been before the mind of Jude in this expression, is that of the naked trees of autumn as contrasted with the bloom of spring and the dense foliage of summer.

Without fruit – That is, they produce no fruit. Either they are wholly barren, like the barren fig-tree, or the fruit which was set never ripens, but falls off. They are, therefore, useless as religious instructors – as much so as a tree is which produces no fruit.

Twice dead – That is, either meaning that they are seen to be dead in two successive seasons, showing that there is no hope that they will revive and be valuable; or, using the word twice to denote emphasis, meaning that they are absolutely or altogether dead. Perhaps the idea is, that successive summers and winters have passed over them, and that no signs of life appear.

Plucked up by the roots – The wind blows them down, or they are removed by the husbandman as only cumbering the ground. They are not cut down – leaving a stump that might sprout again – but they are extirpated root and branch; that is, they are wholly worthless. There is a regular ascent in this climax. First, the apostle sees a tree apparently of autumn, stripped and leafless; then he sees it to be a tree that bears no fruit; then he sees it to be a tree over which successive winters and summers pass and no signs of life appear; then as wholly extirpated. So he says it is with these men. They produce no fruits of holiness; months and years show that there is no vitality in them; they are fit only to be extirpated and cast away. Alas! how many professors of religion are there, and how many religious teachers, who answer to this description!

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jud 1:12

Spots [R.., hidden rocks] in your feasts of charity.

Unsuspected dangers

Hidden rocks are the seamens worst dangers, and they generally prove the most fatal. They account for the disappearance of many a gallant barque and brave crew. They are not laid down on the chart.

I. The unsuspected dangers which wreck Christian Churches. The apostle means that there were men who, instead of keeping the unity and peace of the Christian community, were the means of wrecking both. The kind of men they are is described in Jud 1:4.

1. They have crept into the Church surreptitiously, not being possessed of the spiritual qualifications they professed to have.

2. They perverted the gospel to evil ends. They turned the grace of our God unto lasciviousness. They divorced religion from good morals and good life.

3. There was denial of essential Christian doctrine. Denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

II. The unsuspected perils of individual spiritual history. Hidden rocks.

1. Nobody will know. The possibility of secret sin is one of the grave perils of youth and inexperience.

2. Only this once. The tempter has never had a more successful plea to urge upon the unwary. But if for once, why not for always?

3. It is not necessary to be so very particular. But thoroughness is one great element of safety.

4. Never mind, another time will do as well. This is perhaps the most fatal of all. Procrastination of duties means the giving up of duties. Secret unfaithfulness becomes open apostacy. (W. H. Davison.)

Hidden rocks in your love-feasts

(R.V.):–The love-feast symbolised the brotherhood of Christians. It was a simple meal, in which all met as equals, and the rich supplied the necessities of the poor. It would seem as if these profligates–

(1) brought with them luxurious food, thus destroying the Christian simplicity of the meal; and

(2) brought this not for the benefit of all, but for their own private enjoyment, thus destroying the idea of Christian brotherhood and equality. The whole purpose of the love-feast was wrecked by these men. They were rocks in them. (A. Plummer, D. D.)

Feeding themselves without fear.

Eucharistic feeding without fear

May not these words be applied to the Eucharistic feeding of those who come to the most holy feast without searching of heart, without self-examination, trusting in their respectability, their apparent blamelessness in respect of gross sin and such things? (M. F. Sadler, M. A.)

Clouds they are without water.–

Disappointing men

These men are ostentatious, but they do no good. It was perhaps expected that their admission to the Church would be a fresh gain to Christendom; but they are as disappointing as clouds that are carried past () by winds without giving any rain: and in the East that is one of the most grievous among common disappointments. (A. Plummer, D. D.)

Clouds without water

It pleaseth the Spirit of God in many places of the Old Testament to compare prophets and teachers unto clouds, and their doctrine unto the dropping and distilling of the rain and sweet showers. So the Prophet Ezekiel is commanded to set his face towards the way of Teman, and drop his word toward the south, and his prophecy towards the forest. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, and my speech shall distil as the dew, as the shower upon the herbs, and as the great rain upon the grass (Deu 32:2). The word translated prophecy (Mic 2:7; Mic 2:11) signifieth properly to drop or distil. The reason of which comparison is rendered. Because as the rain falleth upon the earth and returneth not in vain, but moisteneth it, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to him that eateth (Isa 55:10-11); so the word in the mouth of the ministers returneth not void, but accomplisheth the Lords will. The words then standing upon this similitude bear this sense: Though the property and use of clouds is to carry water and rain for the use of the earth, yet some clouds are without water; even so, though all teachers ought to be filled and fitted with store of wholesome doctrine, to pour it out for the use of the Church, yet these seducers are utterly destitute thereof. And, again, as those clouds without water are light, and fit for nothing than to be carried about with wind, so these are altogether variable and unconstant, carried about with every blast of strange doctrine. The former of these similitudes condemneth their sin of barrenness and unfruitfulness; the latter their sin of inconstancy and variableness. (W. Perkins.)

Trees whose fruit withereth.–

Spiritual withering

1. Even corrupt trees bear some fruit, though but withered. Most men go to hell in the way of religious appearances (Mat 7:22-23).

2. Withering and decaying in holiness is a distemper very unsuitable, and should be very hateful to every Christian.

(1) In respect of God. Decays in our Christian course oppose His nature, in whom is no shadow of change.

(2) In respect of ourselves.

(a) Whatever professions have been made, it is certain there never was sincerity.
(b) Spiritual withering renders all former profession unprofitable and in vain.
(c) Spiritual withering makes our former profession and progress therein to injure us.

(3) In respect of others.

(a) They who remain strong and stable are much distressed by the decay of any.
(b) The weak are much endangered to be carried away with others for company.

(c) The wicked are confirmed in the sin into which the decayed Christian is fallen, and also much deride and reproach that way of truth and holiness which the unsteadfast have forsaken.

3. It is the duty of Christians to endeavour after spiritual fruitfulness (Mat 3:8; Luk 3:8; 2Co 9:10; Php 1:11; Jam 3:17; Joh 15:2; Joh 15:5; Joh 15:16; Col 1:10).

4. The greatest flourishes and appearances of hypocrisy cannot reach the excellency of the least dram of sincerity. All a hypocrite can do amounts not to fruit.

5. Incorrigibleness in sin is a dismal condition. It is a woe to have a bad heart, but it is the depth of woe to have a heart that shall never be better.

6. It is our greatest wisdom, and ought to be our chiefest care, to be preserved from apostacy. To this end–

(1) Be sure to have the truth of spiritual life in you.

(2) Forecast the worst that can befall you.

(3) Take heed of the smallest decay, a beginning to remit of thy holiness.

7. God at length discovers unsound, empty, and decaying Christians to be what they are. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)

Fruit withering

I. What is backsliding? It is not everything that morbid conscientiousness may sometimes mistake for it.

1. It is not the loss of the first gushing emotions of early youth or even of early Christian life.

2. Nor is it the occasional loss of enjoyment or even of peace. The vessel may be going forward, even in a fog, and though neither sun nor stars appear, may be still obeying her helm and speeding to port.

3. Temptation, again, is not backsliding. This is one of our present tests. It is the furnace, but because the gold is in the crucible it does not follow there is alloy. No; backsliding is a loss, not of buoyant feeling, or of joy merely, or of freedom from assault, but of spiritual life and power; not of the adjuncts of this life, but of itself. When the eye loses its lustre, the cheek its bloom, the form its roundness, it is from a loss of vitality. The outward indications are but symptomatic, the failure is within. Backsliding is a loss of spiritual life, which, of course, affects the whole circle of spiritual experience, spiritual duties, spiritual influences, and in all senses makes the fruit to wither. Is it not, as thus understood, a most wretched state? It is foolish. What fools we are to lose such a condition as our former one, and to lapse into this; to leave the Fathers house, with its abundance of provision and love, and to feed on ashes and husks. How ungrateful, too. Think what has been done for us by the all-loving Saviour; in us, by His gracious Spirit. How opposed to the genius of the gospel, too! Christianity intends growth, advancement in each grace, in the entire Christian life, and this in order to perfection. We have perversely been realising just the opposite; crab-like, have gone backward instead of forward.

II. What is the cause of backsliding? The cause may be one of many, or all combined.

1. It may be that the tree itself is bad. Its surroundings favourable, it may yet fail from inherent defect. I need not say that this is the main cause with us. Alas! we are degenerate trees of a tainted stock. Sin, that destroyer of all good, dwells in us. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. The stock itself is tainted, the tree corrupt, and no wonder it fails to mature good fruit. But has it not been engrafted? It has, but the old nature is not eradicated. Subdued, striven against, wrestled with, it yet exists, and is the cause, the first great cause, of all the knots, excrescences, and withered fruit which mar the beauty of the tree.

2. Not only may the tree be bad, its soil may be defective. As the tree literally, so we spiritually, draw our sap from without. It has been the defect of this vital influence that has been another cause of our failure. Had it been supplied, drawn through, the appointed medium, as it might and ought, it would have vanquished the noxious elements already existing, and produced vigour and health. And why has not this been done? Partly, perhaps, from a defect in our original training. Rejoicing in our new experience, one of glowing delight, first love, we lived on day by day, sustained simply by emotion. This, then, seemed to suffice, for the well was deep. By a beneficent law of nature, however, it is ordained that strong emotion shall be but temporary, that intense heat shall evaporate into steam. When this ceased, we were at fault. We have learnt since that our life is hid with Christ in God, that He is our life, and is unchangeable and perennial. We may have failed to avail ourselves subsequently even of this, but at first we did not adequately know it.

3. Another cause of withering may be the surrounding atmosphere. How subtle this is, and how insidiously and yet injuriously it acts upon the growing trees. There is an atmosphere about us all spiritually, formed by our domestic and social position–the books we read, places we frequent, society we form, ministry we attend, and a thousand other things in our daily lives. This may be helpful; it may also be the reverse.

4. Besides this habitual atmosphere, there are also blights–states of the atmosphere when it is more fully than usual charged with poisonous influences or parasitic life. Prevailing tones of fashion and dress, sinful indulgence, habits of excess, sudden prosperity, worldly alliance, lax sense of obligation–how these sometimes come over the promising tree, and in a night or day destroy its beauty, cover it with deformity, wither its fruit!

5. Another cause of decay is lack of appropriate means. The tree needs not only a sound stock, good soil and atmosphere, but also proper attention. Digging, manure, water, pruning, are all requisite, and without these it will suffer, at length decay. That God works by means we know, and this in our best estate we practically recognised. How diligently these were plied at first. The Bible was our joy, and we had it in our heart, that we might not sin against God. Prayer, too, what a reality it was! The Sabbath, how we loved it! And the sanctuary, it was truly Bethel, Gods house. All these, and kindred ones, were means of spiritual culture to us. If these, any or all of them, have been neglected by us, come to be duties rather than privileges–no wonder that we have become withered, and that our fruit has decayed.

6. Fruit may wither because it is not used at the appropriate time. One reason why spiritual life in our Churches is so feeble and sickly a principle is because it lacks exercise. The backsliding Christian is ordinarily to be found amongst the slothful and unprofitable servants.

III. What is the remedy?

1. Return.

2. Repent.

3. Resolve–to watch, pray, be diligent, advance. (D. J. Vincy.)

Twice dead.–

Twice dead

Dean Alford refers to the double death in a tree, which is not only as it seems to the eye in common with other trees, in the apparent death of winter, but really dead; dead to appearance, and dead in reality.

Plucked up by the roots

So incapable of ever reviving. (J. Wesley.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Spots in your feasts of charity] It appears that these persons, unholy and impure as they were, still continued to have outward fellowship with the Church! This is strange: but it is very likely that their power and influence in that place had swallowed up, or set aside, the power and authority of the real ministers of Christ; a very common case when worldly, time-serving men get into the Church.

The feasts of charity, the or love feasts, of which the apostle speaks, were in use in the primitive Church till the middle of the fourth century, when, by the council of Laodicea, they were prohibited to be held in the Churches; and, having been abused, fell into disuse. In later days they have been revived, in all the purity and simplicity of the primitive institution, among the Moravians or Unitas Fratrum, and the people called Methodists.

Among the ancients, the richer members of the Church made an occasional general feast, at which all the members attended, and the poor and the rich ate together. The fatherless, the widows, and the strangers were invited to these feasts, and their eating together was a proof of their love to each other; whence such entertainments were called love feasts. The love feasts were at first celebrated before the Lord’s Supper; in process of time they appear to have been celebrated after it. But they were never considered as the Lord’s Supper, nor any substitute for it. See, for farther information, Suicer, in his Thesaurus, under the word .

Feeding themselves without fear] Eating, not to suffice nature, but to pamper appetite. It seems the provision was abundant, and they ate to gluttony and riot. It was this which brought the love feasts into disrepute in the Church, and was the means of their being at last wholly laid aside. This abuse is never likely to take place among the Methodists, as they only use bread and water; and of this the provision is not sufficient to afford the tenth part of a meal.

Instead of , love feasts, , deceits, is the reading of the Codex Alexandrinus, and the Codex Ephrem, two MSS. of the highest antiquity; as also of those MSS. collated by Laurentius Valla, and of some of those in the Medicean library. This reading appears to have been introduced in order to avoid the conclusion that some might be led to draw concerning the state of the Church; it must be very corrupt, to have in its communion such corrupt men.

Clouds – without water] The doctrine of God is compared to the rain, De 32:2, and clouds are the instruments by which the rain is distilled upon the earth. In arid or parched countries the very appearance of a cloud is delightful, because it is a token of refreshing showers; but when sudden winds arise, and disperse these clouds, the hope of the husbandman and shepherd is cut off. These false teachers are represented as clouds; they have the form and office of the teachers of righteousness, and from such appearances pure doctrine may be naturally expected: but these are clouds without water-they distil no refreshing showers, because they have none; they are carried away and about by their passions, as those light fleecy clouds are carried by the winds. See the notes on 2Pe 2:17.

Trees whose fruit withereth] . Galled or diseased trees; for is, according to Phavorinus, , a disease (in trees) which causes their fruit to wither; for although there are blossoms, and the fruit shapes or is set, the galls in the trees prevent the proper circulation of the sap, and therefore the fruit never comes to perfection. Hence the apostle immediately adds, without fruit; i.e. the fruit never comes to maturity. This metaphor expresses the same thing as the preceding. They have the appearance of ministers of the Gospel, but they have no fruit.

Twice dead] First, naturally and practically dead in sin, from which they had been revived by the preaching and grace of the Gospel. Secondly, dead by backsliding or apostasy from the true faith, by which they lost the grace they had before received; and now likely to continue in that death, because plucked up from the roots, their roots of faith and love being no longer fixed in Christ Jesus. Perhaps the aorist is taken here for the future: They SHALL BE plucked up from the roots-God will exterminate them from the earth.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

These are spots: see 2Pe 2:13.

In your feasts of charity; feasts used among the primitive Christians, to show their unity among themselves, and promote and maintain mutual charity, and for relief of the poor among them.

Feeding themselves without fear; unreasonably cramming themselves, without respect to God or the church.

Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; empty, making a show of what they have not, Pro 25:14; and inconstant: see 2Pe 2:17.

Trees whose fruit withereth; he compares them to trees, which having leaves and blossoms, make a show of fruit, but cast it, or never bring it to maturity, or it rots instead of ripening; so these here make a show of truth and holiness, but all comes to nothing.

Without fruit; without any good fruit, (which only deserves to be called fruit), brought forth by them, either in themselves or followers, who never get any real benefit by them.

Twice dead; wholly dead; dead over and over; dead by nature, and dead by that hardness of heart they have contracted, or that reprobate sense to which God hath given them up.

Plucked up by the roots; and so never like to bear fruit, and fit only for the fire; it notes the incurableness of their apostacy, and their nearness to destruction.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

spots So 2Pe2:13,Greek,spiloi;but here the Greekis spilades,which elsewhere, in secular writers, means rocks,namely, on which the Christian love-feastswere in danger of being shipwrecked. The oldest manuscript prefixesthe article emphatically, THE rocks. The reference to clouds… winds … waves of the sea, accords with this image of rocks.Vulgateseems to have been misled by the similar sounding word to translate,as EnglishVersion,spots; compare however, Jud1:23,which favors EnglishVersion,if the Greekwill bear it. Two oldest manuscripts, by the transcribers effortto make Jude say the same as Peter, read here deceivings forlove-feasts, but the weightiest manuscript and authoritiessupport EnglishVersionreading. The love-feast accompanied the Lords Supper (1Co11:17-34,end). Korah the Levite, not satisfied with his ministry,aspired to the sacrificingpriesthoodalso: so ministers in the Lords Supper have sought to make it asacrifice,and themselves the sacrificingpriests, usurping the function of our only Christian sacerdotalPriest,Christ Jesus. Let them beware of Korahs doom!

feedingthemselves Greek,pasturing (tending) themselves. What they look to is thepampering of themselves,not the feeding of the flock.

withoutfear Join these words not as EnglishVersion,but with feast. Sacred feasts especially ought to be celebratedwithfear.Feasting is not faulty in itself [Bengel], but it needs to beaccompanied with fearof forgetting God, as Job in the case of his sons feasts.

clouds from which one would expect refreshing rains. 2Pe2:17,wells without water. Professors without practice.

carriedabout The oldest manuscripts have carried aside, that is, out ofthe right course (compare Eph4:14).

treeswhose fruit withereth rather, trees of the late (or waning)autumn, namely, when there are no longer leaves or fruits on thetrees [Bengel].

withoutfruit having no good fruit of knowledge and practice; sometimes used ofwhat is positively bad.

twicedead First when they cast their leaves in autumn, and seem duringwinter dead,but revive again in spring; secondly, when they are plucked up bythe roots. So these apostates, once dead in unbelief, and then byprofession and baptism raised from the death of sin to the life ofrighteousness, but now having become deadagainby apostasy, and so hopelesslydead.There is a climax. Not only withoutleaves,like treesin late autumn,but withoutfruit:not only so, but dead twice; and to crown all, plucked up by theroots.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

These are spots in your feasts of charity,…. Or “love”. The Jews speak , “of a feast of faith” b. These here seem to be the Agapae, or love feasts, of the primitive Christians; the design of which was to maintain and promote brotherly love, from whence they took their name; and to refresh the poor saints, that they might have a full and comfortable meal now and then: their manner of keeping them was this; they began and ended them with prayer and singing; and they observed them with great temperance and frugality; and they were attended with much joy and gladness, and simplicity of heart: but were quickly abused, by judaizing Christians, as observing them in imitation of the passover; and by intemperance in eating and drinking; and by excluding the poor, for whose benefit they were chiefly designed; and by setting up separate meetings for them, and by admitting unfit persons unto them; such as here are said to be spots in them, blemishes, which brought great reproach and scandal upon them, being persons of infamous characters and conversations. The allusion is either to spots in garments, or in faces, or in sacrifices; or to a sort of earth that defiles; or else to rocks and hollow stones on shores, lakes, and rivers, which collect filth and slime; all which serve to expose and point out the persons designed. The Alexandrian copy and some others read, “these are in their own deceivings, spots”, , instead of , as in 2Pe 2:13;

when they feast with you; which shows that they were among them, continued members with them, and partook with them in their solemn feasts, and were admitted to communion; and carries in it a kind of reproof to the saints, that they suffered such persons among them, and allowed them such privilege, intimacy, and familiarity with them:

feeding themselves without fear; these were like the shepherds of Israel, who fed themselves, and not the flock, and were very impious and impudent, open and bare faced in their iniquities, neither fearing God nor regarding man.

Clouds [they are], without water; they are compared to clouds for their number, being many false prophets and antichrists that were come out into the world; and for their sudden rise, having at once, and at an unawares, crept into the churches; and for the general darkness they spread over the churches, making it, by their doctrines and practices, to be a dark and cloudy day, a day of darkness, and gloominess, a day of clouds, and of thick darkness, a day of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy; and for the storms, factions, rents, and divisions they made; as also for their situation and height, soaring aloft, and being vainly puffed up in their fleshly mind; as well as for their sudden destruction, disappearing at once. And to clouds “without water”, because destitute of the true grace of God, and of true evangelical doctrine; which, like rain, is from above, from heaven; and which, like that, refreshes, softens, and fructifies. Now these false teachers looked like clouds, that promised rain, boasted of Gospel light and knowledge, but were destitute of it, wherefore their ministry was uncomfortable and unprofitable.

Carried about of winds; either of false doctrines, or of their own lusts and passions, or of Satan’s temptations:

trees whose fruit withereth: or “trees in autumn”; either like to them, which put forth at that season of the year, and so come to nothing; or like to trees which are bare of leaves as well as fruit, it being the time when the leaves fall from the trees; and so may be expressive of these persons casting off the leaves of an outward profession, of their going out from the churches, separating from them, and forsaking the assembling together with them, when what fruit of holiness, and good works, they seemed to have, came to nothing; and so were

without fruit, either of Gospel doctrine, or of Gospel holiness and righteousness; nor did they make any true converts, but what they made were like the Pharisees, as bad, or worse than themselves; and from their unfruitfulness in all respects, it appeared that they were not in Christ the true vine, and were not sent forth by him, nor with his Gospel, and that they were destitute of the Spirit of God.

Twice dead; that is, entirely, thoroughly, and really dead in trespasses and sins, notwithstanding their pretensions to religion and godliness; or the sense may be, that they were not only liable to a corporeal death, common to them with all mankind, but also to an eternal one, or to the death both of soul and body in hell. Homer calls d those , “twice dead”, that go to hell alive: or rather the sense is this, that they were dead in sin by nature, as all men are, and again having made a profession of religion, were now become dead to that profession; and so were twice dead, once as they were born, and a second time as they had apostatized:

plucked up by the roots; either by separating themselves from the churches, where they had been externally planted; or by the act of the church in cutting them off, and casting them out; or by the judgment of God upon them.

b Zohar in Exod. fol. 36. 3, 4. d Odyss. l. 12. lin. 22.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hidden rocks (). Old word for rocks in the sea (covered by the water), as in Homer, here only in N.T. 2Pe 2:13 has .

Love-feasts (). Undoubtedly the correct text here, though A C have as in 2Pe 2:14. For disorder at the Lord’s Supper (and love-feasts?) see 1Co 11:17-34. The Gnostics made it worse, so that the love-feasts were discontinued.

When they feast with you (). See 2Pe 2:13 for this very word and form. Masculine gender with rather than with the feminine . Cf. Re 11:4. Construction according to sense.

Shepherds that feed themselves ( ). “Shepherding themselves.” Cf. Re 7:17 for this use of . Clouds without water ( ). common word for cloud (Mt 24:30). 2Pe 2:17 has (springs without water) and then (mists) and (driven) rather than here (borne around, whirled around, present passive participle of to bear around), a powerful picture of disappointed hopes.

Autumn trees ( ). Late adjective (Aristotle, Polybius, Strabo) from , to waste away, and , autumn, here only in N.T. For (without fruit) see 2Pe 1:8.

Twice dead ( ). Second aorist active participle of . Fruitless and having died. Having died and also “uprooted” (). First aorist passive participle of , late compound, to root out, to pluck up by the roots, as in Mt 13:29.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Spots [] . Only here in New Testament. So rendered in A. V., because understood as kindred to spiloi (2Pe 2:13); but rightly, as Rev., hidden rocks. So Homer, (” Odyssey, “3, 298),” the waves dashed the ship against the rocks [] . ” See on deceivings, 2Pe 2:13. These men were no longer mere blots, but elements of danger and wreck.

When they feast with you. See on 2Pe 2:13.

Feeding [] . See on 1Pe 5:2. Lit., shepherding themselves; and so Rev., shepherds that feed themselves; further their own schemes and lusts instead of tending the flock of God. Compare Isa 56:11.

Without fear [] . Of such judgments as visited Ananias and Sapphira. Possibly, as Lumby suggests, implying a rebuke to the Christian congregations for having suffered such practices.

Clouds without water. Compare 2Pe 2:17, springs without water. As clouds which seem to be charged with refreshing showers, but are born past [] and yield no rain.

Whose fruit withereth [] . From fqinw or fqiw, to waste away, pine, and ojpwra, autumn. Hence, literally, pertaining to the late autumn, and rightly rendered by Rev., autumn (trees). The A. V. is entirely wrong. Wyc., harvest trees. Tynd., trees without fruit at gathering – time. Twice dead. Not only the apparent death of winter, but a real death; so that it only remains to pluck them up by the roots.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “These are spots in your feasts of charity” -these infiltrating apostates when attending love-feasts of social fellowship among the sanctified were “spots” – (Greek spilades) sunken rocks – “party poopers”, throwing rocks, wet blankets on the spirit of social Christian fellowship, not satisfied to disturb worship, they also dampened the spirits and disheartened the people of God in hours of social feasting and fellowship. They would sink the ship of fellowship by disheartening words and actions. They attended the feasts to feed their own ego. 2Pe 1:13-14.

2) “Feeding themselves without fear” -they were like shepherds who fed themselves not fearing (Greek aphobos) what became of the flock – not interested in others, covetous; of such Paul also warned, 2Ti 3:2-5.

3) “Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds”, these unstable religious apostate fakes bounced around, drifting, shifting, spiritually empty like clouds with outward show and promise of rain, but gave no water. They even made loud noises, offered fleshly hopes like empty thunderclouds that give no rain, leave the beholder disappointed, 2Pe 2:17.

4) “Trees whose fruit withereth” autumn trees with nothing more than dried, withered, and rotten fruit to offer – any fruit they might seem to offer is of a cheap kind.

5) ‘Without fruit- twice dead” “twice dead” means fiat barren or empty through fruit producing time to autumn; second they were like a tree “plucked up by the roots”, beyond hope of ever bearing fruit for God – false apostles; bad trees never produce good fruit. Of such our Lord warned in the Sermon on the Mount Mat 7:16-20. Because their root stock, their nature, was not Divine their fruit of life was evil, vain, spiritually dead or barren.

HYPOCRISY

It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where truth is not at the bottom nature will always be endeavoring to return, and will peep out and betray herself one time or another.

– Tillotson

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. These are spots in your feasts of charity. They who read, “among your charities,” do not, as I think, sufficiently explain the true meaning. For he calls those feasts charities, ( ἀγάπαις,) which the faithful had among themselves for the sake of testifying their brotherly unity. Such feasts, he says, were disgraced by impure men, who afterwards fed themselves to an excess; for in these there was the greatest frugality and moderation. It was then not right that these gorgers should be admitted, who afterwards indulged themselves to an excess elsewhere.

Some copies have, “Feasting with you,” which reading, if approved, has this meaning, that they were not only a disgrace, but that they were also troublesome and expensive, as they crammed themselves without fear, at the public expense of the church. Peter speaks somewhat different, [2Pe 2:13,] who says that they took delight in errors, and feasted together with the faithful, as though he had said that they acted inconsiderately who cherished such noxious serpents, and that they were very foolish who encouraged their excessive luxury. And at this day I wish there were more judgment in some good men, who, by seeking to be extremely kind to wicked men, bring great damage to the whole church.

Clouds they are without water. The two similitudes found in Peter are here given in one, but to the same purpose, for both condemn vain ostentation: these unprincipled men, though promising much, were yet barren within and empty, like clouds driven by stormy winds, which give hope of rain, but soon vanish into nothing. Peter adds the similitude of a dry and empty fountain; but Jude employs other metaphors for the same end, that they were trees fading, as the vigor of trees in autumn disappears. He then calls them trees unfruitful, rooted up, and twice dead; (196) as though he had said, that there was no sap within, though leaves might appear.

(196) “Twice dead” is deemed by some a proverbial expression to signify what is altogether dead; or, as by Macknight, it means that they were dead when professing Judaism, and dead after having made a profession of the gospel. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Jud. 1:12. Spots.Lit. , rocks; Vulg. macul (compare 2Pe. 2:13). Rocks in your love-feast, causing stumbling and shipwreck. Feeding themselves.Seeking their own interests; getting their satisfaction out of leading you astray, forwarding their own purposes. Clouds trees.Figures of useless things, that may be noisy and may make a show, but prove wholly mischievous (compare 2 Peter 2). Twice dead.When it fails to yield good fruit, and when it wholly loses vital sap.

Jud. 1:13. Raging waves.With evident allusion to unrestrainedness of sensual passions. Wandering stars.Figure from the shooting stars, or the comets. Suggestive of the shortlived fame and baleful influence of these false teachers. They too were drifting away into the eternal darkness.

Jud. 1:14. Enoch also.Here is almost a verbal quotation from the apocryphal book of Enoch, or from the tradition embodied in that book. See Illustrations. Seventh from Adam.Some symbolical importance attached to this numbering which cannot now be recovered.

Jud. 1:15. Execute judgment.To exercise universally judicial administration. This must not be taken as a quotation from inspired Scriptures.

Jud. 1:16. Persons in admiration.Or loudly praising persons for the sake of what they can get out of them.

Jud. 1:18. Ungodly lustsLit. after the lusts of their own impieties.

Jud. 1:19. Separate themselves.Carrying with them a certain following, and so making schisms and sects. Sensual.Better sensuous. The Spirit.Who, if He dwells in us, surely controls the natural ambitions and passions. The word for Spirit is without the article in the Greek, so it may mean simply unspiritual.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Jud. 1:12-19

Three Types of Mischief-makers.In Jud. 1:11 three men are introduced as types from the Old Testament history of the men who were putting the faith and purity of the Christian Churches in such grave peril. They are Cain, Balaam, and Korah. But it is evident that St. Jude had more in his mind associated with these names than we can find in the Scripture records. Round these three names Rabbinical and other legends had grown up, and in the Jewish mind there was a kind of horror at the mention of these names. It was saying the severest thing that could be said of the mischief-makers to liken them to Cain, or Balaam, or Korah. The Rabbinic legends represented Cain as the offspring, not of Adam, but of Sammael, the evil spirit, and Eve, and as the parent of other evil spirits, and therefore as connected with the idea of foul and unnatural impurity. The point prominent in the remembrance of Balaam is his scheming to ruin Israel through enticements to sensuality. And a strange Rabbinic legend, while it placed the souls of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Gehenna, represented them as not tormented there. The paragraph now before us divides into three sections.

I. The Cain type of mischief-makers (Jud. 1:12-13).We need not follow those precise suggestions which come from the legendary additions; we may keep to those which connect with the Scriptural narratives. Then the Cain type represents self-seekers. Cain did not want anything absolutely wrong. His want was unworthy, and revealed an unworthy disposition, simply because it was so utterly self-centred and selfish. And there ever have been men in Christs Church, who proved to be most serious mischief-makers, not because they have done things positively wrong, but because they have brought such a self-seeking spirit into it. Nothing more surely, or more utterly, spoils the peace of Christs Church, than the presence of a member who is merely seeking his own things. Such a man, like Diotrephes, loves to have the pre-eminence, and will be sure to push and strive to get it. Precisely what the self-interested man cannot bear is to have any favour shown to a brother, an Abel. Rejoicing in a brothers blessing or success he cannot do. The poor soul can do nothing but rejoice in his own; and fretand fret other peopleif neither success nor blessing come to him. St. Jude is intensely severe in dealing with the Cain type of mischief-makers. They appear at the love-feasts, when everybody ought to be mindful of his brother, and finding every way of expressing brotherly love; and in a sharp sentence he shows the selfish men sitting at the feast, feeding themselves without fear. If there are any delicacies on the table, they have got them. If their neighbours right and left have had for a long while empty plates, they neither see nor care. We know the men only too well. The Church of to-day is troubled with their presence and influence. St. Jude likens them to four things; declares how certainly they must come into Divine judgment; and vigorously denounces the spirit which is so manifest in their conversation and intercourse. The four things to which they are likened are:

1. Clouds without water, self-contained, that have no blessing for anybody. Aggravating clouds, that show themselves as grandly as they can, wandering about the sky, but never break and pour refreshing rains upon the thirsty earth.
2. Trees whose fruit withereth. Aggravating trees! Watch them in spring-timethere is good show of blossom; watch them in summerthe fruitage seems enlarging; come to them in autumnthere is nothing for you: all is shrivelled. A tree for show, that had no blessing for anybody in it.
3. Raging waves; this suggests a darker side of the selfish man. He is always fussy, always worrying, always wanting to put everybody else straight; always mounting up like the waves, and making a great noise, and doing nothing, only showing his own noisy helplessness.

4. Wandering stars, who will come into no sort of order, persist in taking their own way, and will surely find the woe of being out of Gods order. Then St. Jude declares how certainly all self-ordering, self-seeking men must come into Divine judgment, taking his sentences (Jud. 1:14-15) almost precisely from a familiar literary work of his day, known as the book of Enoch. It is precisely the same basis of Divine judgment that our Lord presents in His judgment parable, and in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Those who did no ministry were the self-contained, self-interested professors. The rich man was wholly self-satisfied, and never once thought of ministering. The great judgment of God falls upon those who, while bearing the Christ-name, were nothing to anybody, and did nothing for anybodyeven as Cain. And upon them St. Jude pours out his denunciations, as well he might. See these men in any Christian Church. They are the grumblers, the dissatisfied, the boasters. They are the men who make much of the rich, flatter them, to get what they can for themselves out of them. Their mouth speaketh great swelling words. Alas! how often we have heard them! You would think the world was made, and the Church founded, entirely for the honour of these men. And they have mens persons in admiration because of advantage. They are courtiers, flatterers, and parasites. The temper characterised is that which fawns as in wondering admiration on the great, while all the time the flatterer is simply seeking what profit he can get out of him whom he flatters. There is no real Christian life unless the Cain spirit is wrought out of a man; unless self is dethroned, and sonship and brotherhood enthroned.

II. The Balaam type of mischief-makers.A portion of Jud. 1:16 evidently is suggested by the remembrance of Balaam. It is not essential to the selfish man that he should seek money only; but where there is gain-seeking there is an additional power for mischief-making in Christs Church. The gain-seeker is always a selfish man; but the selfish man is not always a gain-seeker. Balaam always had his eye upon the rewards of divination, and he could do mean and shameful things under the inspiration of that gain-seeking. Illustration may also be taken from Simon the Sorcerer, and from Demas. The love of money is partly a bad bias of natural disposition; but as such the Christian professor is bound to resist it and work it out. The love of money is the root of all evil. Let the covetous, grasping spirit get into any Christian community, it will speedily effect its spiritual degradation and ruin. All high and holy motives fade away when the sordid ones are forced to the front.

III. The Korah type of mischief-makers.These are the credit-seekers, who are sharply defined by St. Jude as they who separate themselves. They are the schismatics and sectarians. They want to be first. They can only get first by being otherwise in something. All sects that have broken off from the fellowship of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church have been led into their separateness by some Korah-typed man. For all true freedom of thought and life, within due bounds of authority, the Church provides, and this freedom should suffice for all who are humble-minded, and supremely want the honour of Christ, and the unity and blessing of Gods people. Credit of superior knowledge, or of keener spiritual insight, will soon make a man masterful within the Church of Christ, and there are always weak souls who are easily carried away by the positiveness, the dogmatic tone of the over-confident man.

These three types of Church troublers have been found in every age, and are found among us to-day. But he whose supreme aim is the glory of Christ can be no self-seeker; he whose great concern is being a blessing to others can be no gain-seeker; and he whose whole effort is devoted to securing the welfare of the community can be no mere credit-seeker. We must not be after the pattern of Cain, or of Balaam, or of Korah. One is our master, even Christ, and all we are brethren.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Jud. 1:14-15. The Book of Enoch.That there is a very close resemblance between this passage and the book of Enoch

(2) will be seen by comparing the following translation: Behold He comes with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done, and committed against Him.

Judes Use of the Book of Enoch.As the book of Enoch had probably been in existence for a century before St. Jude wrote, and was easily accessible, it is more natural to suppose that he quoted here, as in previous instances, what he thought edifying, than to adopt either of the two strained hypotheses:

(1) that the writer had received what he quotes through a tradition independent of the book of Enoch, that tradition having left no trace of itself in any of the writings of the Old Testament; or
(2) that he was guided by a special inspiration to set the stamp of authenticity upon the one genuine prophecy which the apocryphal writer had imbedded in a mass of fantastic inventions.A. Plummer, D.D.

Book of Enoch by Different Authors.One of the most curious remains of early Christian literature that have come down to us is the Apocalypse, or book of Enoch. It is the product of different authors. The main bulk of the work, describing the visit of Enoch to paradise, and the vision of the future history of the world which was revealed to him there, was written by a Jew about 30 B.C. The rest of the work has been proved by Hilgenfeld to have been composed by a Christian at the beginning of the second century. It is this part of the book which has been assigned by Ewald and others to the first century before Christ, and regarded as evidence that the leading conceptions and terms of Christianity were already familiar to the Jewish people before the coming of Christ.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

METAPHORES FROM NATURE THAT ILLUSTRATE APOSTASY

Jud. 1:12-13

Text

12.

These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without roots;

13.

wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved for ever.

Queries

61.

Jude compares these apostates with five different things from nature. What are they?

62.

What does the King James translation call these hidden rocks?

63.

In what way would a hidden rock in a feast cause trouble? (Imagine a rock in a dish of dried beans).

64.

What is implied by the expression: A shepherd that feeds himself without fear?

65.

What does Pro. 25:14 compare to a cloud without water?

66.

Can you see any significance in the fact that the clouds are carried along by winds? If so, what?

67.

Why do you think he specifically mentions autumn trees?

68.

In what way are these trees twice dead?

69.

In what way are these apostates twice dead?

The manuscripts seem to differ as to whether the reading is rocks or hidden rocks. In either case, the reading should be rocks rather than the spots of King James.

Shepherds they are called. The word means those who tend the flock. A secondary meaning of feed themselves (shepherds) is to furnish pasture, or nourishment, to ones body; thus to serve the body. This last meaning seems to be in keeping with the textual context, for they feed themselves without fear. They do not look for nor dread any possible correction, expulsion from the brotherhood, nor punishment from God. Absorbed in the satisfaction of their own sensuous desires they have no thought for feeding their souls.

The waterless clouds, that raise mens hopes but are always a disappointment, are also referred to in 2Pe. 2:14; 2Pe. 2:17. They are clouds that blot out the light of God and bring no moisture for growth. Ever visible they are, as well as ever fruitless. Unstable, at the mercy of every wind of false doctrine, they are carried with the tempest. They are strangers to the faithful word, and have no fixed direction in their own course.

While the stars in heaven keep a fixed course in relation to the rotation of the earth, there are planets that appear as stars, but wander off the fixed course. They are not in the same orbit as the other stars, and their relative wanderings appear aimless and unrelated. So are these libertines as they hold not to the faith that had been delivered to the saints once for all. Their lives are a departure from the Christ-like witness that is normal for the Christian. Their witness appears aimless and unrelated to Jesus Christ.

Their sensuous passions are beaten constantly into a filthy, roaring foam. Their shameful deeds (shames) are the only fruits of their agitations. The hidden things of shame (2Co. 4:2) are not renounced by them, but rather from the depths of their rotten lives are the seaweeds and dirt, mire and unclean scum, that are laid bare as the foam of their agitation bursts forth upon the sands of time.

Their destiny is also shown forth by the aimless stars of heaven. With no fixed course but wandering aimlessly about the blackness of space, they have both all expanse and all eternity without any hope of a resting place with God.
Such sensuality among the brethren within the living church of God is not an impossibility. The libertines of that day had their places for feeding the desires of the flesh and promoting sensuality. Today, however, the very home itself has become a spawning area for all kinds of filth. Magazines that contain all kinds and all amounts of sex are often carried, even through the mails, into the home. The television set has become a living fixture in the home that carries death through sensuality as many as twenty or more hours in every day. Spirituality is lost in the sensual desire for the sensuous programs. Wednesday night prayer services, and even the Sunday evening church services have been overwhelmed by the avalanche of fleshly carnality via the TV. Entire churches have dismissed these services, admitting defeat. Time for prayer and devotions within the home is no more. There are too many programs that might be missed. There are too many games to be played and too many parties to be attended. Besides all this, if there were regular devotions within the home, where would one find time to cook, eat, sleep, and cook again? The appetites of the flesh are many, and they cry out as demanding in this day as the day in which the epistle of Jude was written. May God help us to heed the warning.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(12-19) Three-fold description of the ungodly, corresponding to the three examples just given. The divisions are clearly marked, each section beginning with These are (Jud. 1:12; Jud. 1:16; Jud. 1:19).

(12-15) Description corresponding to Cain.
(12) These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you.Rather, These are the rocks in your feasts of charity, banqueting with you fearlessly (see next Note); or, These are they who banquet together fearlessly, rocks in your feasts of charity. The former is preferable. But in any case we must probably read rocksi.e., that on which those who meet them at your love-feasts will be wrecked (see Notes on 1Co. 11:20-22)not spots, which is borrowed from 2Pe. 2:13. But it is just possible that as spiloi, St. Peters word, may mean either spots or rocks (though most commonly the former), so St. Judes word (spilades) may mean either spots or rocks (though almost invariably the latter). In an Orphic poem of the fourth century, spilades means spots ; but this is rather late authority for its use in the first century. Here rocks is the safer translation. St. Peter is dwelling on the sensuality of these sinners, and for him spots is the more obvious metaphor. St. Jude, in tracing an analogy between them and Cain, would be more likely to select rocks. These libertines, like Cain, turned the ordinances of religion into selfishness and sin: both, like sunken rocks, destroyed those who unsuspectingly approached them. On the difference of reading respecting the word for feasts of charity, or love-feasts, see Note on 2Pe. 2:13. Possibly the name Agap for such feasts comes from this passage. Had it been common when St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 11, he would probably have made a point of it; love-feasts in which there was no love. (Comp. 1Pe. 5:14.)

Feeding themselves without fear. Without fear goes better with feasting with you; but the Greek admits of either construction. Feeding themselves instead of the poorer members of the flock; whereas feeding the poor was one great object of the love-feasts. Others explain, feeding themselves (literally, pasturing themselves) instead of waiting to be tended by the shepherds. The former is better, the scandal being similar to that described in 1Co. 11:21. (Comp. Isa. 56:11, which St. Jude may possibly have had in his mind; and see above, second Note on Jud. 1:8.)

Clouds without water.Comp. Pro. 25:14. The meaning is not that these men bring much food to the love-feasts and give nothing away: there is no longer any allusion to the love-feasts. Rather, these men are ostentatious generally, and yet do no good inflated and empty. (See on 2Pe. 2:17.)

Carried about of winds.More literally, borne past (without giving any rain) by winds; or, perhaps, driven out of their course (and so showing their flimsiness) by winds.

Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit.There is no such strange contradiction in the Greek, nor in any of the earlier English versions. The meaning rather is, autumn trees (which ought to be full of fruit, and yet are) without fruit; in allusion, probably, to the barren fig-tree. Others, less simply, explain trees in late autumni.e., stripped and bare. But for this we should expect winter trees rather than autumn trees.

Twice dead.Utterly dead, and hence plucked up by the roots. Spiritually these men were twice dead in having returned, after baptism, to the death of sin. The writer piles up metaphor on metaphor and epithet on epithet in the effort to express his indignation and abhorrence. The epithets here are in logical order: in autumn, fruitless, dead, rooted up.

(13) Foaming out their own shame.More literally, shames, their shameful acts. Isa. 57:20 is probably in St. Judes mind: The wicked are like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

Wandering stars.Nothing is gained by understanding comets, which have their orbits, and do not wander, in St. Judes sense, any more than planets do. The image is that of stars leaving their place in the heavens, where they are beautiful and useful, and wandering away (to the utter confusion of every one who directs his course by them) into sunless gloom, where their light is extinguished, and whence they cannot return. This simile suits the false teachers of 2 Peter better than the ungodly of Jude. Would the writer of 2 Peter have neglected to avail himself of it?

(14) And Enoch also.On the Book of Enoch, and this famous quotation from it, see Excursus at the end of the Epistle. The following passage from Irenus (IV. Xvi. 2) shows that he was acquainted with the book, and throws light on St. Judes use of it:Enoch also, pleasing God without circumcision, was Gods ambassador to the angels, although he was a man, and was raised to heaven, and is preserved even until now as a witness of the just judgment of God. For the angels by transgression fell to earth for judgment, while a man, by pleasing God, was raised to heaven for salvation. The mission of Enoch to the fallen angels is narrated in the Book of Enoch, 12-16.

The seventh from Adam.This is not inserted without special meaning. It was scarcely needed to distinguish the son of Jared from the son of Cain; in that case it would have been more simple to say, the son of Jared. It either points to the extreme antiquity of the prophecy, or else to the mystical and sabbatical number seven. Enoch (see preceding Note) was a type of perfected humanity, and hence the notion of divine completion and rest is perhaps suggested here. Thus, Augustine, in his reply to Faustus the Manichan (xii. 14):Enoch, the seventh from Adam, pleased God and was translated, as there is to be a seventh day of rest, in which all will be translated who during the sixth day of the worlds history are created anew by the incarnate Word. Several of the numbers connected with Enoch in Genesis seem to be symmetrical, and intended to convey a meaning.

With ten thousands of his saints.Or, among His holy myriadsi.e., encircled by them. (Comp. Deu. 33:2; Heb. 12:22.)

(15) To execute judgment.The Greek phrase occurs only here and Joh. 5:27.

To convince.Better, to convict. (Comp. Joh. 8:46, and see Notes on Joh. 16:8, and on 1Co. 14:24.) The words among them must be omitted, as wanting in authority.

Hard speeches.Comp. Joh. 6:60, the only other place where this epithet is applied to words. The meaning is somewhat similar in each case: harsh, repulsive, inhuman. It does not mean hard to understand. Nabal (1Sa. 25:3) has this epithet with the LXX., where the Authorised version has churlish. In the Ethiopic version of the Book of Enoch there appears to be nothing to represent hard speeches . . . spoken in this passage.

(16-18) Description corresponding to Balaam.
(16) Complainers.Literally, discontented with their lot. Men who shape their course according to their own lusts can never be content, for (1) the means of gratifying them are not always present, and (2) the lusts are insatiable. Such was eminently the case with Balaam, in his cupidity and his chafing against the restraints which prevented him from gratitifying it. There is a possible reference to this verse in the Shepherd of Hermas (Sim. IX. xix. 3).

Great swelling words.See Note on 2Pe. 2:18.

Having mens persons in admiration.More simply, admiring persons (so the Rhemish version)i.e., having regard to people of distinction, as Balaam to Balak. These ungodly men were courtiers, flatterers, and parasites.

Because of advantage.For the sake of advantagei.e., to gain something by it: like for reward (Jud. 1:11). Exactly Balaams case. Note that each half of the verse falls into an irregular triplet.

(17) But, beloved.Better, as in Jud. 1:20, But ye, beloved. Ye is emphatic in both cases: ye, in contrast to these impious men. All previous English versions insert the ye. While taking the form of an exhortation, the passage still remains virtually descriptive. Be not ye deceived by their impudent boasting and interested pandering, for these are the scoffing sensualists against whom the Apostles warned you.

Spoken before of the apostles.The old use of of for by, like carried about of winds (Jud. 1:12). (Comp. 2Pe. 2:19.) St. Jude implies that this warning of the Apostles is well known to those whom he addresses. This appeal to the authority of Apostles would be more naturally made by one who was not an Apostle, but cannot be regarded as decisive. See Introduction, I., and Note on 2Pe. 3:2, to which, however, this is not quite parallel, for the writer there has already declared himself to be an Apostle (2Pe. 1:1). There is nothing to show that the author of our Epistle regards the Apostles as considerably removed in time from himself. In the last time is their expression, not his; and by it they did not mean any age remote from themselves. (Comp. 1Jn. 2:18; 2Ti. 3:1-2; 2Ti. 3:6; Heb. 1:2; 1Pe. 1:20.)

(18) How that they told you.Or, perhaps, used to tell you: but we cannot infer from this that oral teaching exclusively is meant. This, again, leaves the question of the writers position open. Had St. Jude written how that they told us, it would have been decisive against his being an Apostle.

There should be mockers.Better, that there shall be scoffers. The quotation is direct, and is introduced formally by a word which in Greek commonly precedes a direct quotation. This, however, scarcely amounts to proof that the quotation is from a written document. The word for mockers here is the same as that translated scoffers in 2Pe. 3:3. The translation should be the same in both passages.

In the last time.These words had better come first: that in the last time there shall be scoffers.

Who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.Better, walking according to their own lusts of impieties. The force of the genitive may be merely adjectival, as the Authorised version renders it: but as it may indicate the things lusted for, it is better to keep a literal rendering of it.

(19) Description corresponding to Korah.
(19) These be they.Better, These are theyfor the sake of making the openings of Jud. 1:12; Jud. 1:16; Jud. 1:19 exactly alike, as they are in the Greek.

Who separate themselves.Themselves must be omitted, the evidence against it being overwhelming. Who separate: who are creating a schism, like Korah and his company; claiming to be the chief and most enlightened members in the community to which they still profess to belong, though they turn upside down its fundamental principles. The context rather leads us to suppose that these libertines claimed to be the only spiritual Christians, inasmuch as they said that to their exalted spiritual natures the things of sense were purely indifferent, and might be indulged in without loss or risk; while they taunted other Christians, who regulated their conduct carefully with regard to such things, with being psychic or sensuous. Note the three-fold division of the verse.

Sensual.The Greek word is psychic, and has no English equivalent; sensuous would perhaps be best. The LXX. do not use it, but it occurs six times in the New Testament. Four times (1Co. 2:14; 1Co. 15:44; 1Co. 15:46) it is translated natural (see Note on 1Co. 2:14); once (Jas. 3:15), sensual, with natural in the margin; and here simply sensual. In 1Co. 15:44; 1Co. 15:46, the moral meaning is in the background; in the other three passages the moral meaning is prominent and is distinctly bad. Psychic is the middle term of a triplet of terms, carnal, psychic, spiritual. Carnal and spiritual speak for themselvesthe one bad, the other good. Psychic, which comes between, is much closer to carnal, and with it is opposed to spiritual. This is more clearly seen in the Latin equivalentscarnalis, animalis, spiritalis. The carnal man is ruled by his passions, and rises little above the level of the brutes. The psychic man is ruled by human reasoning, and human affections, and does not rise above the world of sense. The spiritual man is ruled by his spiritthe noblest part of his natureand this is ruled by the Spirit of God. He rises to and lives among those things which can only be spiritually discerned. Our Christian psychology is seriously affected by the absence of any English word for psychicthe part of mans nature which it represents is often lost sight of.

Having not the Spirit.Or, perhaps, because they have no spirit. The Holy Spirit may be meant, although the Greek word has no article; but more probably spiritual power and insight is what is meant. These men had allowed the spiritual part of then nature, of which they talked so much, to become so buried in the mire of sensual indulgence and human self-sufficiency, that it was utterly inoperative and practically non-existent. The form of negative used in the Greek seems to imply that their having no spirit is the reason why they are justly called sensuous.

Each of these three descriptions (Jud. 1:12-19) is shorter than the preceding one. The writer hurries through an unpalatable subject to the more pleasing duty of exhorting those faithful Christians for whose sake he is writing.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. In the next two verses St. Jude ranges through nature, through earth, sea, and sky, for images of reprobation for the sensualistic heretics. Rocks, clouds, trees, waves, and stars are collected in expressive disorder of succession, to image their disorderly existence.

Spots Rather, rocks; that is, concealed peaks or breakers on which ships are liable to wreck. The calm, sweet sea, under whose surface these treacherous wreckers were lurking, were the feasts of charity, the agapae or love-feasts of the primitive Church. These were banquets after the Lord’s supper, intended to promote social fraternity in the Church, and to provide a charitable meal for the indigent, who were invited to partake. Wesley’s institution of love-feast was a revival of only the first of these purposes. Strange to say, these social and charitable meals could be kept pure neither from gluttony nor licentiousness, and for that reason were abandoned by the Church and prohibited by her authorities. We hope it is a proof of modern improved morality that no such facts, at our Sabbath-school excursions, picnics, and other Christian socialities, have given pain to the Church.

Feast fear Perhaps a better rendering would be: Carousing with you without fear, providing for themselves. Even at a sacred feast they had no fear to indulge in excess and license. And by their seductions they were as rocks under surface, dangerous to the unsuspecting mariners.

Clouds Which in a dry region are a sweet promise of a falling shower; and these for awhile seemed rich with refreshing spirituality and benefaction to the Church. But, alas! they were waterless, with no reviving or fertilizing store in their bosom, and soon they are seen to be the image of fickleness and worthlessness, being the sport of the varying winds.

Trees Once fruitful, but now autumnal and stripped of fruit. The phrase, whose fruit withereth, simply signifies autumnal, and so bare of fruit and leaves.

Twice dead De Wette understands doubly-dead to be simply intensive, utterly dead. Alford and others, dead, first, in autumnal fruitlessness, their annual fruit-bearing energy being expended; and, secondly, dead by the subsequent extinction of all vitality. This describes, we may admit, doubly dead trees, but shows not the correspondent double death in the men typified by the trees. On the other hand, Stier and Wordsworth find the twice dead solely in the men, namely, in their original death by unregeneracy, and a second death after conversion by apostasy. This must find its correspondence in the trees in their original fruitlessness previous to the bearing, and a cessation of bearing by the cessation of life. We doubt whether a return to De Wette’s interpretation is not best.

Plucked up by the roots A single word, uprooted; or, as the Greek, more expressively, out-rooted. By the Greek aorist all these verbs contemplate the operations from the standpoint of time after their completion. See note, Rom 8:5; Rom 5:13. It is as if at the consummation of the whole ruin our apostle’s pen describes things as past.

Plucked up Rent from the Church, and, their probation being closed, virtually or really, wrenched from life; no longer cumberers of the ground. Their future and final fate predicted as a past fact.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you; shepherds who without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved for ever.’

Jude now vividly describes what these godless persons really are. They are sham imitations of the real thing, fruitless and very often dangerous to those who heed them.

‘These are they who are hidden reefs (‘dangerous objects’ or ‘spots’) in your love-feasts when they feast with you.’ Creeping into the love feasts, which were feasts provide by the better off Christians so that all, including slaves, could enjoy food and fellowship together in love, in order to eat their fill, they cause others to be shipwrecked because of their false ideas, encouraging excess and constantly spoiling what should be so joyous an occasion. (Compare 1Co 11:21-22). Claiming to be a safe landing place, they turn out to be hidden reefs. We all need to beware of such people. They are like Satan presenting himself as an angel of light (compare 2Co 11:13-14). We have to test them against the Scriptures.

‘Shepherds who without fear feed themselves.’ They claim to be shepherds concerned with feeding the flock (see 1Pe 5:2), but in reality they are only interested in benefiting themselves, and they do it openly and callously at the love feasts. Compare also Eze 34:2.

‘Clouds without water, carried along by winds.’ They give every promise of spiritual rain and fruitfulness, seeming to offer life and blessing, but like clouds carried by the wind, simply produce disappointment and fail to produce the necessary blessing.

‘Autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.’ They give a good show of being fruitful like the fig tree that withered at Jesus’ word (Mat 21:19), but underneath like that fig tree they are dead. So they are then plucked up and wither away, thus becoming twice dead. Compare the fruitless branches of the vine in Joh 15:1-6 which, proving themselves to be dead, were cut off because they produced no fruit. Thus those who receive their teaching will be doubly dead. They will suffer both the first and second death (Rom 6:23; Rev 20:14)

For the idea of being rooted up as symbolising divine judgment see Psa 52:5; Pro 2:22; Jer 1:10; Mat 3:10.

‘Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame.’ Wild and out of control their shameful ideas can be seen as like foam on a raging sea. They are all froth and bubble, quickly arising, and soon disappearing, and ending up as nothing. Compare also Isa 57:20, ‘the wicked are like the raging sea which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and dirt’.

‘Wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved for ever.’ The idea here may be of the planets whose movements cannot be relied on to indicate the right way. And their destiny is seen as being to fade and finally disappear into everlasting and total darkness. So in the same way these godless persons profess to act as guides, but are simply leading others astray. And their destiny is everlasting darkness (Mat 8:12; Mat 22:13).

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

His Vivid Description Of Their Spiritual Bankruptcy ( Jud 1:12-16 ).

Jude now vividly pictures their spiritual bankruptcy by means of vivid metaphors, and cites a well known prophecy from the Book of Enoch demonstrating the judgment that is coming on them. It should be noted, however, that he does not use any specific formula which would suggest that he saw the Book as Scripture. We can compare Joh 11:51 which demonstrates that any saying from an important religious person that contained truth could be seen as having been ‘prophesied’. Compare also Zacharias in Luke in Luk 1:67, although there it is connected directly with the Holy Spirit. Jude lived in the days when there were Christian and other prophets whose sayings were not all seen as Scripture, (they had to be ‘judged’), but could be cited when they could be seen as true to Scripture. Thus he simply parallels ‘Enoch’ in a general way with these prophets, and selects out of his writings what is Scripturally true.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Jud 1:12. These are spots in your feasts of charity, The first writer who describes these love-feasts is Tertullian, in his Apologies, ch. 39. Having given an account of the public worship and discipline of the Christians, their great charity and holy lives, and having taken notice of some luxurious suppers among the Heathens, he adds, “The nature of our supper may be known by its name; it is called by a Greek word which signifies love; whatever we spend therein, we look upon it as so much gain, seeing we thereby refresh all our poor: nothing vile or immodest isthere admitted; we do not sit down before we have prayed to God; every one eats what is sufficient, and drinks with sobriety, as remembering that in the night he must engage in the adoration of God. They converse together, as they who know that the Lord heareth them. After washing their hands, and lighting candles, they sing divine songs, either taken out of the scriptures, or of their own composing, as every one is able. The feast is concluded with prayer.” The reader will find more on this subject in Cave’s or Fleury’s account of the primitive Christians, or in Hallett’s Notes, vol. 3: p. 235. Respecting the word , spots, see Parkhurst and Wetstein. The meaning of the next clause, Feeding themselves without fear, which Heylin renders well, indulging their appetites without restraint, seems to be, that they fed themselves in a voluptuous manner, without the fear of God, or of any scandal or disgrace which they might bring upon the Christian name. In St. Peter it is , they lived luxuriously, 2 Eph 2:13. They indulged to excess both in eating and drinking, and so were spots and blemishes, or a scandal to the Christian name. Instead of whose fruit withereth, some render the Greek word by in the decline of autumn: the word properly signifies, “the latter end of autumn,” when it verges towards the winter. St. Jude therefore says, that those corrupt Christians were like trees in the decline of autumn, when they have shed their leaves, and are in a withering condition. Dr. Heylin renders it withered trees. Some fig-trees had fruits upon them when they had no leaves: but to shew that these differed from good trees, St. Jude adds, without fruit. Here is a remarkable gradation; first, they are trees in the decline of autumn, stripped of their leaves and withering; secondly, they are without fruit, as well as without leaves; successive summers and winters have passed over them, and they have been continually, growing more and more fit for fuel: thirdly, they are twice dead, or, they are spiritually dead a second time by making shipwreck of their faith: therefore, fourthly, they are plucked up by the roots, as hopeless and irrecoverable. See Parkhurst on the word .

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Jud 1:12 . A further description of these false teachers; comp. 2Pe 2:13 ; 2Pe 2:17 .

[ ] ] In the reading , is either, with de Wette, to be supplied; thus: “these are they who are in your ;” or is to be joined to (comp. Jud 1:16 ; Jud 1:19 ; so Hofmann). That by the love-feasts are to be understood, is not to be doubted. Erasmus incorrectly takes it as = charitas, and Luther as a designation of alms.

The word is usually explained = cliffs (so also formerly in this commentary). If this is correct, the opponents of Jude are so called, inasmuch as the love-feasts were wrecked on them (de Wette-Brckner, Wiesinger), i.e. by their conduct these feasts ceased to be what they ought to be; or inasmuch as they prepared destruction for others, who partook of the love-feasts (Schott and this commentary). It is, however, against this interpretation that does not specially indicate cliffs , but has the more general meaning rocks (Hofmann: “projecting interruptions of the plain”), and the reference to being wrecked is not in the slightest degree indicated. [35]

Stier and Fronmller take as = , 2Pe 2:13 ; this is not unwarranted, as , which is properly an adjective (comp. , , ), may be derived as well from = filth (comp. = clayey soil; so Sophocles, Trach. 672, without ), as from = a rock (comp. ). In this case may either be taken as a substantive = what is filthy, spots (these are spots in your agap ; so Stier and Fronmller), or as an adjective, which, used adverbially (see Winer, p. 433), denotes the mode and manner of (so Hofmann). The former construction merits the preference as the simpler.

Apart from other considerations, in 2 Peter are in favour of taking here in the sense of .

] The verb [36] has not indeed by itself a bad meaning, signifying to eat well, to feast well , but it obtains such a meaning here by the reference to the agap . The placed before it may either refer to those addressed, with you , see 2Pe 2:13 , where is added to the verb (Wiesinger, Schott, Fronmller, Hofmann); or to those here described by Jude, feasting together , i.e. with one another . Against the first explanation is the objection, that according to it the in their agap would render those addressed also guilty (so formerly in this commentary); but against the second is the fact that the Libertines held no special love-feasts with one another, but participated in those of the church. The passage, 2Pe 2:13 , is decisive in favour of the first explanation.

The connection of is doubtful; de Wette-Brckner, Arnaud, Schott, Fronmller unite it with ; Erasmus, Beza, Wiesinger, Hofmann, with . In this commentary the first connection was preferred, “because the idea . would otherwise be too bare.” This, however, is not the case, because if the verse is construed, as it is by Hofmann, it has its statement in what goes before; but if is taken as a substantive, as it is by Stier and Fronmller, then . is more precisely determined by the following , whilst it is said that they so participate in the agap that their feasting was a . Erasmus takes the latter words in a too general sense: suo ductu et arbitrio viventes; Grotius, Bengel, and others give a false reference to them after Eze 34:2 , understanding “that these feed themselves and not the church” (comp. 1Pe 5:2 ), and accordingly Schneckenburger thinks specially on the instructions which they engage to give; but this reference is entirely foreign to the context. According to de Wette, it is a contrast to “whilst they suffer the poor to want” (1Co 11:21 ); yet there is also here no indication of this reference.

] is to be understood no more of the agap (de Wette, Schott), but generally. . . are light clouds without water, which therefore, as the addition makes prominent, are driven past by the wind without giving out rain; comp. Pro 25:14 . This figure describes the internal emptiness of these men, who for this reason can effect nothing that is good; but it seems also to intimate their deceptive ostentation [37] ; the addition serves for the colouring of the figure, not for adducing a special characteristic of false teachers; Nicolas de Lyra incorrectly: quae a ventis circumferuntur i. e. superbiae motibus et vanitatibus.

In the parallel passage, 2Pe 2:17 , two images are united: .

According to the reading , the translation would be: “driven hither and thither;” denotes, on the other hand, driven past . A second figure is added to this first, by which the unfruitfulness (in good works) and the complete deadness of these men are described; in the adjectives the gradation is obvious.

] are not a particular kind of trees, such as only bare fruit in autumn, but trees as they are in autumn , namely, destitute of fruit (de Wette-Brckner, Wiesinger, Schott, etc.). It is arbitrary to desert the proper meaning of the word, and to explain according to the etymology of by arbores quarum fructus perit illico = frugiperdae (Grotius; so also Erasmus, Beza, Carpzov, Stier. “which have cast off their fruit in an unripe state”).

] not: “whose fruit has been taken off” (de Wette), but “which are without fruit” (Brckner). Whether they have had fruit at an earlier period, and are now destitute of it, is not said. “The impassioned discourse proceeds from marks of unfruitfulness to that of absolute nothingness” (de Wette). ] Beza, Rosenmller, and others arbitrarily explain by plane, prorsus. Most expositors retain the usual meaning; yet they explain the idea twice in different ways; either that those trees are not only destitute of fruit, but also of leaves (so Oecumenius, Hornejus, and others); or that they bear no fruit, and are accordingly rooted out; or still better, is to be referred to the fact that they are not only fruitless , but actually dead and dried up . [38] That Jude has this in his view, the following shows. Several expositors have incorrectly deserted the figure here, and explained this word either of twofold spiritual death (Beza, Estius, Bengel, Schneckenburger, Jachmann, Wiesinger, Schott), or of death here and hereafter (so Grotius: neque hic bonum habebunt exitum, neque in seculo altero), or of one’s own want of spiritual life and the destruction of life in others. All these explanations are without justification. is in close connection with ; thus, trees which, because they are dead, are dug up and rooted out; [39] thus incapable of recovery and of producing new fruit (Erasmus: quibus jam nulla spes est revirescendi). This figure, taken from trees, denotes that those described are not only at present destitute of good works, but are incapable of producing them in the future, and are “on this account rooted out of the soil of grace” (Hofmann). It is incorrect when Hofmann [40] in the application refers to the fact that those men were not only in their early heathenism, but also in their Christianity, without spiritual life. There is no indication in the context of the distinction between heathenism and Christianity. Arnaud observes not incorrectly, but too generally: tous ces mots sont des mtaphores nergiques pour montrer le nant de ces impies, la lgret de leur conduite, la strilit de leur foi et l’absence de leurs bonnes oeuvres.

[35] The explanation of Arnaud: les rochers continuellement battus par les flots de la mer et souills par son cume (after Steph.: ), is unsuitable; since, when the Libertines are called cliffs, this happens not because they are bespattered and defiled by others, but because others are wrecked on them.

[36] An explanation of this word is found in Xenophon, Memorabilia , lib. iii.: (namely, Socrates) . , , , , ; . However, sometimes occurs in classical Greek in a bad sense.

[37] Calvin: vanam ostentationem taxat, quia nebulones isti, quum multa promittunt, intus tamen aridi sunt. Bullingcr: habent enim speciem doctorum veritatis, pollicentur daturos se doctrinam salvificam, sed veritate destituuntur et quovis circumaguntur doctrinae vento.

[38] Fromnller, incorrectly: “trees which have at different times suffered fatal injury by frosts or from insects.”

[39] Fronmller, linguistically incorrect: “trees which still remain in the earth, but which are shaken loose by their roots.”

[40] “If, when they became Christians, a fresh sap from the roots, by which they were rooted in the soil of divine grace, appeared to establish them in a new life out of their heathen death in sin, yet this new life was to them only a transition into a second and now hopeless death.”

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

12, 13 .] Continuation of the description of these ungodly men . 2Pe 2:13 ; 2Pe 2:17 . These are the rocks ( which are ) in your love-feasts ( , , Etymol. M. Cf. Od. . 405, , . See Wetst.’s note. They are the rocks on which the stand in danger of being wrecked. Cf. c., as quoted under below. It is unnecessary and unjustifiable to attempt to give any other meaning, as some have done on account of the in 2Pe 2:13 . But each passage must stand on its own ground. See Palm and Rost’s Lex., who however give at the end, = , citing for it this passage and Orph. lith. 614. Arnaud endeavours to unite both meanings, resting on the etymology as given by Eustathius (see Wetst.), , : “les rochers continuellement battus par les flots de la mer et souills par son cume:” but this is too far-fetched. See by all means the illustrations in Wetstein. As regards the construction, we might, as Stier, take with : but the above may, supplying , seem better, as . . . Jud 1:6 . has generally been taken to refer to the love-feasts: the , , : see Winer, Realw. Erasmus would keep the ordinary meaning, “in dilectionibus vestris,” or “inter charitates vestras.” But the seems to fix the other. St. Peter has for , , as at present read: see note there), feasting with you ( may mean, feasting together: but the preceding makes the other more probable) fearlessly ( is joined with . by Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), Tricus, and Stier: but thus . would be left standing very badly alone. “Cum timore colenda sunt convivia sacra. Convivari per se nihil vitii habet. Ideo ‘sine timore’ huic verbo annecti debet,” Bengel. c. mentions both arrangements: , , , . , , , ), pasturing their own selves (using the not for their legitimate purpose, the realization of the unity of Christians by social union, but for their own purposes, the enjoyment of their lusts, and the furtherance of their schemes. See Eze 34:1 ff.; the parallelism of which has however been too far pressed here by Grot. (“se dum saginent, gregem negligunt”), Bengel (“non gregem”); which thought does not seem to be in the context, but merely that they feed and pasture themselves in the , having no regard to the Shepherd (or shepherds) set over them. Erasmus widens the sense too far “suo ductu et arbitrio viventes”): clouds without water (see on in 2Pe 2:17 . Water is expected from clouds), carried out of course by winds (here our text is the more concise: St. Peter having, as above, the separate from the . Cf. Pro 25:14 , Heb. or E. V. , borne by, or as above, borne out of their course, hither and thither), autumn trees (i. e. as trees are in the late autumn ( explaining it, see below): as Bengel, “arbor tali specie qualis est autumno extremo, sine (foliis et?) pomis:” not “ frugiperd ,” as Grot.: and so Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), al., and Stier, for which meaning there is no authority in usage: as neither for Schttgen’s, “qu non nisi auctumno senescenti fructus ferunt immaturos et nulli usui futures”), without fruit (as trees at the time above mentioned; but there is nothing in this word to indicate whether fruit has been on them or not), twice dead (it is not easy to explain these words in reference to trees. For that we must do so, and not, as Beza, Est., Bengel, Schneckenb., al., desert the similitude, and understand it of spiritual death twice inflicted, or of death here and in eternity (so Grot.: “neque hic bonum habebunt exitum, neque in sculo altero”), must be evident by following. c. says, , , : and then he explains the first particular as above: Beza, Rosenm. explain by “plane,” “prorsus,” which meaning, though denied by Bretschneider, De Wette illustrates by “bis dat qui cito dat:” and Horace’s “pro quo bis patior mori.” But the most likely reference of the word is to the double death in a tree, which is not only as it seems to the eye in common with other trees, in the apparent death of winter, but really dead, dead to appearance, and dead in reality. Huther comes near this, but does not quite reach it, when he says, “not only without fruit, but dead and dried up:” but this would not be two deaths; whereas the other is), rooted out (the various descriptive clauses form a climax: not only without leaves and fruit, but dead: not only dead, but plucked up and thrown aside. “Tous ces mots sont des mtaphores nergiques pour montrer le nant de ces impures, la lgret de leur conduite, la strilit de leur foi et l’absence de leurs bonnes murs.” Arnaud):

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Jud 1:12 . [ ] . Dr. Chase quotes Zec 1:10 f., Rev 7:14 , Enoch xlvi. 3, Secrets of Enoch , vii. 3 xviii. 3, xix. 3, etc., for the phrase , adding that it was probably adopted by St. Jude from apocalyptic writings, for which he clearly had a special liking. On the early history of the Agape, see my Appendix C to Clem. Al. Strom. vii. The parallel passage in 2 Peter (on which see n.) has two remarkable divergencies from the text here, reading for and for . There has been much discussion as to the meaning of the latter word. It is agreed that it is generally used of a rock in or by the sea, and many of the lexicographers understand it of a hidden rock, , see Thomas Mag., , , , Etymol. [795] ., , , ib. , , , (both cited by Wetst.). The same explanation is given by the scholiast on Hom. Od. ver 401 405, . See Plut. Mor. 101 B, , which Wytt. translates “tranquillitas maris caecam rupem tegentis,” ib. 476 A, Oecumenius on this passage, , (? – ), and , , . Wetst. also quotes Heliod. ver 31, . The compound joined with the parallel case of justifies, I think, this sense of , which is rejected by most of the later commentators. [796] Cf. also the use of in 1Ti 1:19 . Scopulus is used in a similar metaphoric sense, see Cic. in Pis. 41 where Piso and Gabinius are called “geminae voragines scopulique reipublicae”. Others take in the very rare sense of “spots,” or “stains,” like in 2 Peter. The only example of this sense seems to be in Orph. Lith. 614, but Hesych. gives the interpretation , . I agree with Bp. Wordsworth and Dr. Chase in thinking that the metaphor of the sunken rocks is more in harmony with the context.

[795] Codex Ruber (sc. ix.), at the British Museum; it derives its name from the colour of the ink.

[796] Dr. Bigg denies this meaning on the strength mainly of two quotations, Hom. Od . iii. 298, , where, he says, the are identical with of 293; and Anthol. xi. 390, . In both of these I think the word refers to the breakers at the bottom of the cliffs: in the latter it is said that hidden rocks are more dangerous than visible reefs. Compare Diod. iii. 43, , .

How are we to account for the gender in ? Are we to suppose the gender of was changed or forgotten in late Greek ( cf. Winer, pp. 25, 38, 73, 76)? If so, the forgetfulness seems to have been confined to this author. Or is this a coustructio ad sensum , the feminine being changed to masculine because it is metaphorically used of men (Winer, pp. 171, 648, 660, 672), cf. Rev 11:4 , and B’s reading below? Or may we take as expressing a complementary notion in apposition to ? The last seems the best explanation though I cannot recall any exact parallel. An easier remedy would be to omit the article (with [797] and many versions), as suggested by Dr. Chase in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible , ii. p. 799 b , translating: “these are sunken rocks in your love-feasts while they feast with you”.

[797] Codex Mosquensis (sc. ix.), edited by Matthi in 1782.

. Is used in the parallel passage of 2 Peter with a dat. as in Luc. Philops 4, Jos. Ant. iv. 8, 7.

. If we take as complementary to , it is better to take with .: if we omit the article and take to be the predicate, will be an epexegetic participle, which will require strengthening by . Generally . is used in a good sense, but we find it used, as here, of the want of a right fear in Pro 19:23 , , . . ., Pro 15:16 , , Sir 5:5 , , . The phrase . recalls Eze 34:8 , , , but there does not seem to be any reference to spiritual pastors in Jude; and has probably here the sense “to fatten, indulge,” as in Pro 28:7 , , , Pro 29:3 , , , Plut. Mor. 792 B, . We may compare 1Co 11:27 f., Jam 5:5 , 1Ti 5:6 .

. The character of the innovators is illustrated by figures drawn from the four elements, air, earth, sea, heaven ( ). Spitta points out the resemblance to a passage in Enoch (chapters ii. v.), which follows immediately on the words quoted below, Jud 1:14-15 . The regular order of nature is there contrasted with the disorder and lawlessness of sinners. “I observed everything that took place in the heaven, how the luminaries do not deviate from their orbits, how they all rise and set in order, each in its season, and transgress not against their appointed order. I observed and saw how in winter all the trees seem as though they were withered and shed all their leaves. And again I observed the days of summer how the trees cover themselves with green leaves and bear fruit. And behold how the seas and the rivers accomplish their task. But as for you, ye have not continued steadfast; and the law of the Lord ye have not fulfilled and have slanderously spoken proud and hard words (below Jud 1:15 , ) with your impure mouths against his greatness.“For the metaphor cf. Eph 4:14 . In the parallel passage of 2 Peter the first figure is broken into two, , . Perhaps the writer may have thought that there was an undue multiplication of causes; if the clouds were waterless, it was needless to add that they were driven past by the wind. We find the same comparison in Pro 25:14 : “As clouds and wind without rain, so is he that boasteth himself of his gifts falsely”. [The LXX is less like our text, suggesting that Jude was acquainted with the original Hebrew. C [798] ] For the use of with see my note on Jas 3:4 .

[798]. Codex Ephraemi (sc. v.), the Paris palimpsest, edited by Tischendorf in 1843.

. is an adjective derived from , which is itself, I think, best explained as a compound of ( cf. ), meaning the concluding portion of the . This latter word is, according to Curtius, compounded of -, connected with , , and = “the later prime”. We find used by itself both for the spring with its flowers and, more rarely, for the summer with its fruits, as in Thuc. ii. 52, . Perhaps from this double use of the word may have come the ambiguity in the application of , of which Ideler says that “it originally indicated, not a season separate from and following after the summer, but the hottest part of the summer itself, so that Sirius, whose heliacal rising took place (in the age of Homer) about the middle of July, is described as Il. Jud 1:5 ). In early times it would seem that the Greeks, like the Germans (Tac. Germ. 26), recognised only three seasons winter, spring, summer, and that the last was indifferently named or : compare Arist. Aves 709, , , , with Aesch. Prom. 453, . But though was thus used strictly for the dog-days, when the fruit ripened, it was also vaguely used for the unnamed period which ensued up to the commencement of winter. Thus Hesiod ( Op. 674) : and appears as a definite season by the side of the others in a line ot Euripides, qnoted by Plutarch ( Mor. 1028 F), from which it appears that he assigned four months each to summer and winter, and two to spring and :

(where the epithet deserves notice). It is said that the author of the treatise De Diaeta (c. 420 B.C.), which goes under the name of Hippocrates, was the first to introduce a definite term ( or ) for the new season, the word being reserved for the late summer, according to the definition of Eustath. on Il. Jud 1:5 , . And so we find it used by Aristotle ( Meteor . ii. 5), , , and by Theophrastus ( , 44), , .

There is a good deal of inconsistency about the exact limits of the seasons, as is natural enough when we remember that they were first distinguished for purposes of agriculture and navigation, as we see in Hesiod’s Works and Days . Each season brings its own proper work, and the farmer or merchant is reminded of the return of the season by various signs, the rising and setting of stars, especially of the Pleiades and Arcturus, the sun’s passage through the signs of the zodiac, the reappearance of the birds, etc. A more strictly accurate division was made by the astronomers, who distinguished between the various kinds of rising and setting of the stars, and divided the year into four equal parts by the solstices and equinoxes. In the year 46 B.C. Julius Caesar introduced his revised calendar, which assigned definite dates to the different seasons. Thus spring begins a.d. vii. id. Feb. (Feb. 7), summer a.d. vii. id. Mai. (May 9), autumn a.d. iii. id. Sext. (Aug. 11), winter a.d. iv. id. Nov. (Nov. 10).

To turn now to the commentators, I may take Trench as representing their view in his Authorised Version , p. 186, Exo 2 , where he says, “The is the late autumn which succeeds the (or the autumn contemplated as the time of the ripened fruits of the earth) and which has its name , from the waning away of the autumn and the autumn fruits. The deceivers of whom St. Jude speaks are likened to trees as they show in late autumn, when foliage and fruit alike are gone.”

I have stated above what I hold to be the origin of the word . Trench’s explanation is ambiguous and unsuited to the facts of the case, as will be seen from the criticisms in Lightfoot’s Fresh Revision , p. 135: “In the phrase ‘autumn-trees without fruit’ there appears to be a reference to the parable of the fig-tree. At all events the mention of the season when fruit might be expected is significant.” He adds in a note, “Strange to say, the earliest versions all rendered correctly. [799] Tyndale’s instinct led him to give what I cannot but think the right turn to the expression, ‘Trees with out frute at gadringe (gathering) time,’ i.e. at the season when fruit was looked for. I cannot agree with Archbishop Trench, who maintains that ‘Tyndale was feeling after, though he has not grasped, the right translation,’ and himself explains as ‘mutually completing one another, without leaves, without fruit ’. Tyndale was followed by Coverdale and the Great Bible. Similarly Wycliffe has ‘hervest trees without fruyt,’ and the Rheims version ‘trees of autumne unfruiteful’. The earliest offender is the Geneva Testament, which gives ‘corrupt trees and without frute’. The Bishops’ Bible strangely combines both renderings, ‘trees withered ( ) at fruite gathering ( ) and without fruite,’ which is explained in the margin, ‘Trees withered in autumne when the fruite harvest is, and so the Greke woord importeth’.”

[799] This agreement is probably owing to their dependence on the Vulgate “ arbores auctumnales infructuosae ”.

The correctness of the interpretation, given by Lightfoot alone among modern commentators, is confirmed by a consideration of the context. The writer has just been comparing the innovators, who have crept into other Churches, to waterless clouds driven past by the wind. Just as these disappoint the hope of the husbandman, so do fruitless trees in the proper season of fruit. If were equivalent to , denoting the season when the trees are necessarily bare both of leaves and fruit, how could a tree be blamed for being ? It is because it might have been, and ought to have been a fruit-bearing tree, that it is rooted up.

. Schneckenburger explains, “He who is not born again is dead in his sins (Col 2:13 ), he who has apostatised is twice dead,” cf. Rev 21:8 , Heb 6:4-8 , 2Pe 2:20-22 . So the trees may be called doubly dead, when they are not only sapless, but are torn up by the root, which would have caused the death even of a living tree.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

spots = hidden rocks, as the texts. Greek. spilas. Only here. The word in Eph 5:27 and 2Pe 2:13 is spilos.

feasts of charity. Literally loves, i.e. love-feasts. App-135.

when they feast = feasting. See 2Pe 2:13.

feeding. Literally pasturing, as a shepherd does his flock.

themselves. Making the love-feast an occasion of gratifying the appetite, instead of promoting spiritual edification. Compare Eze 34:2.

whose fruit withereth = in autumnal decay. Greek. phthinoporinos. Onlyhere.

without fruit. Greek. akarpos. Elsewhere translated “unfruitful”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12, 13.] Continuation of the description of these ungodly men. 2Pe 2:13; 2Pe 2:17. These are the rocks (which are) in your love-feasts (, , Etymol. M. Cf. Od. . 405, , . See Wetst.s note. They are the rocks on which the stand in danger of being wrecked. Cf. c., as quoted under below. It is unnecessary and unjustifiable to attempt to give any other meaning, as some have done on account of the in 2Pe 2:13. But each passage must stand on its own ground. See Palm and Rosts Lex., who however give at the end, = , citing for it this passage and Orph. lith. 614. Arnaud endeavours to unite both meanings, resting on the etymology as given by Eustathius (see Wetst.), , : les rochers continuellement battus par les flots de la mer et souills par son cume: but this is too far-fetched. See by all means the illustrations in Wetstein. As regards the construction, we might, as Stier, take with : but the above may, supplying , seem better, as … Jud 1:6. has generally been taken to refer to the love-feasts: the , , : see Winer, Realw. Erasmus would keep the ordinary meaning, in dilectionibus vestris, or inter charitates vestras. But the seems to fix the other. St. Peter has for , , as at present read: see note there), feasting with you ( may mean, feasting together: but the preceding makes the other more probable) fearlessly ( is joined with . by Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), Tricus, and Stier: but thus . would be left standing very badly alone. Cum timore colenda sunt convivia sacra. Convivari per se nihil vitii habet. Ideo sine timore huic verbo annecti debet, Bengel. c. mentions both arrangements: , , , . , , , ), pasturing their own selves (using the not for their legitimate purpose, the realization of the unity of Christians by social union, but for their own purposes, the enjoyment of their lusts, and the furtherance of their schemes. See Eze 34:1 ff.; the parallelism of which has however been too far pressed here by Grot. (se dum saginent, gregem negligunt), Bengel (non gregem); which thought does not seem to be in the context, but merely that they feed and pasture themselves in the , having no regard to the Shepherd (or shepherds) set over them. Erasmus widens the sense too far-suo ductu et arbitrio viventes): clouds without water (see on in 2Pe 2:17. Water is expected from clouds), carried out of course by winds (here our text is the more concise: St. Peter having, as above, the separate from the . Cf. Pro 25:14, Heb. or E. V. , borne by, or as above, borne out of their course, hither and thither), autumn trees (i. e. as trees are in the late autumn ( explaining it, see below): as Bengel, arbor tali specie qualis est autumno extremo, sine (foliis et?) pomis: not frugiperd, as Grot.: and so Erasm., Beza (and consequently E. V.), al., and Stier, for which meaning there is no authority in usage: as neither for Schttgens, qu non nisi auctumno senescenti fructus ferunt immaturos et nulli usui futures), without fruit (as trees at the time above mentioned; but there is nothing in this word to indicate whether fruit has been on them or not), twice dead (it is not easy to explain these words in reference to trees. For that we must do so, and not, as Beza, Est., Bengel, Schneckenb., al., desert the similitude, and understand it of spiritual death twice inflicted, or of death here and in eternity (so Grot.: neque hic bonum habebunt exitum, neque in sculo altero), must be evident by following. c. says, , , : and then he explains the first particular as above: Beza, Rosenm. explain by plane, prorsus, which meaning, though denied by Bretschneider, De Wette illustrates by bis dat qui cito dat: and Horaces pro quo bis patior mori. But the most likely reference of the word is to the double death in a tree, which is not only as it seems to the eye in common with other trees, in the apparent death of winter, but really dead, dead to appearance, and dead in reality. Huther comes near this, but does not quite reach it, when he says, not only without fruit, but dead and dried up: but this would not be two deaths; whereas the other is), rooted out (the various descriptive clauses form a climax: not only without leaves and fruit, but dead: not only dead, but plucked up and thrown aside. Tous ces mots sont des mtaphores nergiques pour montrer le nant de ces impures, la lgret de leur conduite, la strilit de leur foi et labsence de leurs bonnes murs. Arnaud):

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Jud 1:12. , in your agap [love-feasts]) in your banquets by which brotherly love is nourished.-) As there is a Paronomasia between Peter and Jude on the words and , so there is an instance of Homonymia[5] between the same writers in the words , 2Pe 2:13, and , in this passage: for may be taken for spots (macul), as the Vulgate renders it: comp. Jud 1:23 : whence Hesychius has , , polluted, at the same time showing a Metonymia[6] in this place. But he also says, , , the rocks which are surrounded by the sea. Moreover also denotes a storm; and this very notion, of which we have remarked an example on Chrysostom, respecting the priesthood, p. 375, is approved by cumenius. Let the reader make his choice. This metaphor is followed by four others; from the air, the earth, the sea, the heaven.- , feasting themselves without fear) Sacred feasts are to be celebrated with fear; [which is opposed to luxury.-V. g.] Feasting is not faulty in itself: therefore without fear ought to be connected with this verb.-, themselves) not the flock.- ) , that is, , the last part of the month: thus , the end of the autumn: thence , a tree of such art appearance as that which presents itself at the end of the autumn, without leaves and fruit. There is here a gradation, consisting of four members. The first, and flowing from it the second, has reference to the fruit: the third, and flowing from it the fourth, has reference to the tree itself.-, without fruit) trees which produce nothing serviceable for food.-) twice; that is, entirely: with reference to their former state, and their Christian state.-, plucked up by the roots) This is the last step in the process here mentioned.

[5] For HOMONYMIA and PARONOMASIA, see Append.-E.

[6] See Append.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Reciprocal: Lev 14:43 – General 1Sa 2:15 – General 2Ch 7:20 – I pluck Job 6:15 – as the stream Job 8:17 – roots Psa 1:3 – shall not Psa 92:14 – They Pro 21:16 – remain Pro 23:1 – General Pro 23:33 – and Pro 25:14 – boasteth Pro 30:15 – Give Ecc 7:6 – as Isa 5:12 – the harp Isa 57:20 – like Eze 17:10 – shall it Eze 18:24 – when Eze 34:8 – the shepherds Mat 7:17 – but Mat 7:19 – bringeth Mat 13:22 – choke Mat 21:19 – the fig tree Mat 24:49 – and to Mar 4:6 – no root Mar 4:19 – unfruitful Mar 11:20 – General Luk 6:44 – For of Luk 8:13 – and these Luk 11:26 – and the Luk 12:45 – to eat Luk 15:24 – this Luk 23:31 – General Joh 15:6 – he Rom 16:18 – but 1Co 6:12 – but I 1Co 11:21 – and one Phi 3:19 – whose God Col 2:7 – Rooted Heb 10:39 – we are Jam 1:6 – he Jam 5:5 – have lived 2Pe 2:13 – the reward 2Pe 2:17 – are wells Rev 3:1 – and art

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Jud 1:12. Spots is a figure of speech drawn from a hidden rock in the sea that wrecks the vessels. Jude says they will come to the feasts of charity (love feasts, 2Pe 2:13) for the purpose of feeding themselves. Clouds without water is explained at 2Pe 2:17. Trees . . . twice dead is another figure, indicating something utterly useless; the same is meant by being plucked up by the roots.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Jud 1:12. Here follows a further description of these teachers as set forth in strong figures expressly and earnestly reiterated. These are they who are sunken rocks, seen indeed, but their true nature concealed, in your feasts of charity. The word for rocks is found only here in the New Testament, though in common Greek writers it is not infrequent in the sense of rocks in or by the sea. The word in 2Pe 2:13, which is like the word used here, means spots. Probably a rock which appears like a spot, and gathers to itself the sea wrack and dirt, explains the connection between the two words. It disturbs the quiet harbour where it is found, and risks the vessels that are near.

when they feast with you, feeding themselves as they do without fear, and in contempt of the woe which is pronounced against such shepherds (Isa 56:11; cp. 1Pe 5:2, the word for feeding showing that this is the reference).

clouds without water, empty, useless, easily carried along therefore by the wind, ostentatious and deceptive wherever they go.

trees as they are in autumn, in the sear and yellow leaf, with all their vigour gone,not because they have borne fruit, for they are fruitless, and have ever been so; at their best they had leaves only, and even those are decaying.

twice dead, fruitless all along, and now their leaf withereth, and they are rooted out; in the soil of the vineyard they have no place, and they are fit only to be thrown away, or to burn.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Our apostle having set forth these seducers in the foregoing verses by sundry examples, he now comes to set them forth by several similitudes and resemblances.

1. He calls them spots in their love-feasts, (the infamy of their lives being a blemish and scandal to their Christian assemblies,) feeding without fear either of offending God or man.

2. He calls them clouds without water, promising rain, but yielding none; making a show of knowledge, but indeed having none; and they are driven (as clouds by the wind) from one vanity to another.

3. Trees they are, but like them in autumn which have neither leaves nor fruit: nay, trees twice dead, in sin before conversion, and in respect of their apostasy after their conversion, and so shall be plucked up by the roots.

4. They are like raging waves of the sea, turbulent and tumultuous, foaming out at their mouths the filthiness and impurity that boileth in their hearts.

5. Wandering stars, or teachers unstable, departing from the true faith once delivered to them; but for these illuminated and knowing teachers is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Apostasy Illustrated from the Natural Realm

Like rocks hidden in the water, false teachers were unrecognized trouble ready to sink the unprepared Christian. They acted as if they were shepherds of the flock so they could feed themselves. In the dry climate of Palestine, their personalities were best represented as clouds that would seem to promise a much wanted rain but only leave the land dry and disappointed. They were like barren fruit trees in autumn. They should have had fruit but it was as if they had been plucked up by the roots. They were dead in the realm of fruit bearing and devoid of any life ( Jud 1:12 ).

The wave illustration was used in Isa 57:20 . It simply says the false teachers are like the foamy waves which promised much but carried nothing of real value. The star idea may refer to shooting comets or falling meteors leaving only darkness in their trail. Thus, the ultimate end of the false teachers was set forth ( Jud 1:13 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Jdg 1:12. These Ungodly teachers; are spots Blemishes; in your feasts of charity Or love-feasts, as is rendered by many interpreters. Commentators, however, are not agreed what sort of feasts they were. Some think they were those suppers which the first Christians ate previous to their eating the Lords supper, of which St. Paul is supposed to have spoken 1Co 11:21; but which, in consequence of the abuse of them by persons of a character like those here described, were soon laid aside. Others think Jude is speaking of the ancient love-suppers, which Tertullian hath described, (Apol., chap. 39,) and which do not seem to have been accompanied with the eucharist. These were continued in the church to the middle of the fourth century, when they were prohibited to be kept in the churches. Dr. Benson observes, they were called love-feasts, or suppers, because the richer Christians brought in a variety of provisions to feed the poor, the fatherless, the widows, and strangers, and ate with them to show their love to them. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear Abandoning themselves to gluttony and excess, without any fear of God, or jealousy over themselves, and so bringing a great reproach on the gospel, and the religion of Christ. Clouds without water Promising fertilizing showers of instruction and edification, but yielding none, or making a show of what they have not; see on 2Pe 2:17; carried about of winds Of temptation hither and thither, without any command of themselves, into various sorts of wickedness. Trees without fruit The original expression, , is rendered by Macknight, withered autumnal trees; the latter word being derived from , which, according to Scapula, signifies, The decline of autumn drawing toward winter. Or, according to Phavorinus, it signifies a disease in trees which withers their fruit; a sense of the word which Beza has adopted in his translation. The translation of the Vulgate, arbores autumnales infructuosc, gives the same sense with that of Macknight, and suggests, he thinks, a beautiful idea. For, in the eastern countries, the finest fruits being produced in autumn, by calling the corrupt teachers autumnal trees, Jude intimated the just expectation which was entertained of their being fruitful in good doctrine: but by adding , without fruit, he marked their uselessness, and the disappointment of their disciples. Twice dead First in the stock, and afterward in the graft; first by nature, and afterward by apostacy. Or dead under the Mosaic dispensation, (those ungodly teachers being mostly of the Jewish nation,) and though at first apparently quickened on their reception of the gospel, yet, through the abuse of its doctrines and privileges, dead and barren a second time: plucked up by the roots As hopeless and irrecoverable. There is a striking climax in this description of the false teachers: they were trees stripped of their leaves, and withering; they had no fruit, being barren that season: they were twice dead, having borne no fruit formerly: lastly, they were rooted out, as utterly barren.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

12. These are hidden rocks in your love feasts. Nothing is so terrible to the sailor as the rock hidden out of sight by the ocean. The ship striking goes down to rise no more. An old sailor told me he witnessed a case of this kind. The collision was so sudden that seven hundred passengers were all buried in a watery sepulcher; only about forty sailors, by good fortune, were saved, while the great steamer with her contents sank immediately. This is a fearful metaphor. These carnal, unsaved preachers (whose name is legion) with all the power of intellectual culture, social position and official influence, are hidden rocks in our meetings. Honest souls come in contact with them. They slur holiness, upset their experiences, damn them and they sink into the deep sea of perdition. Good Lord, save us from human leadership. Let us follow Jesus only. Feasting with you without fear. They are fond of festivals, enjoying high living, full of carnal boldness engendered by promotion, flattery and popularity. Shepherding themselves. Instead of taking care of the flock they take care of themselves, living like kings, receiving money enough to support a dozen missionaries. They live in pomp and splendor on the money paid by people on their way to hell. Because they pay their assessments, their carnal pastors let them slip through their fingers into hell. If they should enforce discipline, excommunicating all their ungodly members, their salaries would drop from thousands to hundreds. They sell the souls of their members to the devil for filthy lucre. Hear Jesus speak,

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hireling indeed not being the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf seizes and scatters them; because he is an hireling he does not care for the sheep. (Joh 10:11-13.)

Read Ezekiel (30) to the shepherds of Israel, and you will find it still stronger. You see Jesus does not want hireling shepherds (pastors) for his sheep. The well salaried pastor will sleep soundly in palatial parsonage while the people who support him in princely affluence revel in Satans dances, feed their lusts on the obscenities of the theater, or while away the midnight hours around the card-table, attend horse-races and circuses, to say nothing of the saloon and other hell-dens. All these and many more hell-traps are the devils wolves devouring the sheep. Here is a pastor with a thousand members. He needs a corps of red-hot curates working on the streets and holding cottage meetings and running a Pentecostal revival the year round to compete with Satans meetings and keep them out of hell.

He receives their money and is amply able, out of his own purse (if he will live like a man of God), to support a half-dozen blood-washed and fire- baptized helpers to work night and day, fighting Satans wolves and saving the flock. This is an appalling scene, the shepherds living at their ease while the devils wolves eat up the flock, i.e., the people who support them financially go down to hell. Awful will be the revelations of the judgment day. Clouds without water, driven away by the wind. The preacher is Gods cloud to send down water to keep the people from dying of thirst, and the gardens and farm from the desert waste. But, alas, these counterfeit preachers are as destitute of the living water as Peter and John of silver and gold. Winds, emblematize Satanic experience which is sure to predominate when we do not preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Withered trees without fruit, twice dead and plucked up by the roots. From this awful description of the Holy Ghost you see these men were once converted (of course many of them never knew God), i.e., they were dead in the beginning, died again, now utterly destitute of spiritual fruit, hopeless and doomed. When a tree is dead, plucked up by the roots, and withered dry, it can never live again. Hence you see the force of the metaphor. These men are hopeless backsliders, doomed to perdition. Sanctification is Gods appointed grace to keep us from backsliding. These men rejected it persistently till they sank into hopeless apostasy. At the same time they are full of carnal confidence, sated with popularity, complimented and sought after by the blind (spiritually) people for preaching big sermons. Jud 1:16.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

1:12 {10} These are spots in your {l} feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without {m} fear: clouds [they are] without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

(10) He rebukes most sharply with many other notes and marks, both their dishonesty or filthiness, and their sauciness, but especially, their vain bravery of words and vain pride, joining with it a grave and heavy threatening from an ancient prophecy of Enoch concerning the judgment to come.

(l) The feasts of charity were certain banquets, which the brethren who were members of the Church kept altogether, as Tertullian sets them forth in his apology, chap. 39.

(m) Impudently, without all reverence either to God or man.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Five more illustrations, this time from nature, emphasize the seriousness of the false teachers’ error (Jud 1:12-13).

A coral reef that lies hidden under the surface of the water can tear the bottom off a ship if it unsuspectingly runs into it. Likewise the false teachers could ruin a local church. They threatened the moral shipwreck of others. That some of the false teachers were believers or at least professing believers seems certain since they were participating in the love-feast, the most intimate service of worship the early church practiced. The love-feast was a communal meal that included observance of the Lord’s Supper (cf. 1Co 11:17-22). "Caring for themselves" highlights the apostates’ self-centeredness (cf. Eze 34:2; Eze 34:8; Isa 56:11; Joh 10:12-13).

"Jude seems . . . to mean that these men insisted on participating in these love-feasts, not to express mutual love and concern but to gratify their own appetites." [Note: D. Edmond Hiebert, "An Exposition of Jud 1:12-16," Bibliotheca Sacra 142:567 (July-September 1985):240-41.]

Like clouds the false teachers attracted attention to themselves and promised refreshment, but they proved to be all show and no substance (cf. Pro 25:14). In Palestine summer clouds often add to the humidity and consequently make the intense heat even more unbearable.

"To follow such men would result in being led astray from the path of truth and purity." [Note: Ibid., p. 242.]

Farmers often dig trees that bear no fruit out of the ground. The false teachers bore no spiritual fruit and were incapable of bearing spiritual fruit; they were twice dead (cf. Psa 52:5; Pro 2:22; Jer 1:10; Joh 15:1-6). Another view is that twice dead means dead through and through. [Note: The Twentieth Century New Testament.] A third view is that it means dead in reality as well as in appearance. [Note: Alford, 4:537.] A fourth view is that it means presently dead in sin and destined for eternal death. [Note: Hiebert, Second Peter . . ., p. 261.] An uprooted tree is an Old Testament symbol of divine judgment (cf. Psa 52:5; Pro 2:22; Jer 1:10). "Autumn" is literally late autumn in the Greek text, a detail that shows Jude believed he and his readers were living in the last days before the Lord’s return. This viewpoint was common among the New Testament writers (cf. Rom 13:11; 1Pe 4:7; 1Ti 4:1; 1Jn 2:18). Late autumn was the time when trees would have had no leaves much less fruit on their branches. [Note: Kelly, p. 272.]

"These men give no evidence of ever having been regenerated." [Note: Williams, 7:16.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)